India added 8,954 new coronavirus infections taking the total tally of Covid-19 cases to 3,45,96,776, while the active cases were recorded at less than a lakh after 547 days, according to the Union Health Ministry data updated on Wednesday.
The death toll climbed to 4,69,247 with 267 fresh fatalities, according to the data updated at 8 am.
The daily rise in new coronavirus infections has been below 20,000 for 54 straight days and less than 50,000 daily new cases have been reported for 156 consecutive days now.
The active cases declined to 99,023 comprising 0.29 per cent of the total infections, the lowest since March 2020, while the national Covid-19 recovery rate has improved to 98.36 per cent, the highest since March 2020, the ministry said.
A decrease of 1,520 cases has been recorded in the active Covid-19 caseload in a span of 24 hours.
India's Covid-19 tally had crossed the 20-lakh mark on August 7, 2020, 30 lakh on August 23, 40 lakh on September 5 and 50 lakh on September 16. It went past 60 lakh on September 28, 70 lakh on October 11, crossed 80 lakh on October 29, 90 lakh on November 20 and surpassed the one-crore mark on December 19.
India crossed the grim milestone of two crore on May 4 and three crore on June 23.
The chorus against the opening up of normal international flight operations from December 15 against the new and reportedly more infectious 'Omicron' variant of Covid-19 is growing louder in India.
The demand coincides with the Centre's advisory to states and Union Territories (UTs) to ensure preparedness of health infrastructure like availability of ICU, O2 beds, ventilators, among others, and to focus on rural areas.
At present, several nations have either closed their air spaces or placed strict restrictions on incoming passengers.
Several states including Maharashtra and Karnataka have mandated seven-day institutional quarantine for travellers arriving in the state from 'at-risk' countries.
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