India reports lowest daily Covid case rise since April 2

India's Covid chart continued to show improvement on Sunday, with the country recording 80,834 cases, a marginal drop from yesterday's figure that was reported to be the lowest in 70 days.

India, the second-worst hit country, now has 2.94 crore cases, reports NDTV.

India's test positivity rate (positive cases identified for every 100 tests) continues to decline. For the fifth straight day it is below the 5 per cent-mark at 4.25 per cent.

Active cases have decreased by 54,531 in the last 24 hours to take the tally to 10,26,159. Recoveries have been outnumbering the daily new cases for the 31st consecutive day now.

The country witnessed 3,303 virus-related deaths during the period, taking the total number of fatalities to 3.70 lakh.

GST Council Meeting, chaired by India's Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, on Saturday reduced the tax rates on major Covid-related essential items, including medicines, some hospital equipment and other items needed in the fight against Covid-19. Covid vaccines continue to be charged a GST of 5 per cent.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday sought G7's support for a proposal led by India for a TRIPS waiver on Covid-related technologies. Speaking virtually at the first Outreach Session of the G7 Summit on Saturday, he expressed appreciation for its support during the second Covid wave in India, a government release said.

Over 2 lakh people died in India of Covid between January and May, during which the country faced an unprecedented crisis of resource shortage. However, there have been reports of underreporting in some states.

A data from the Civil Registration System has indicated that the number of reported deaths in Madhya Pradesh was over three times more than the average number of deaths reported during these months in pre-Covid times. The official figures for Covid deaths are only a fraction of these excess deaths reported.

Earlier this week, Bihar's massive revision in its Covid deaths figure to over 9,000 became controversial with a 72 per cent jump, raising more questions. Because of Bihar's update, India reported 6,148 new deaths that day, the highest single-day spike.

The Health Ministry on Saturday refuted a report which claimed that its Covid deaths could be "five-to-seven times" higher than the official number, saying the assessment is based on extrapolation of data without any epidemiological evidence.