India recorded 1,67,059 new coronavirus cases in the past 24 hours, 20 per cent lower than the 2.09 lakh infections recorded yesterday, according to official figures released today by the Health Ministry in the morning.

The daily positivity rate, which is the percentage of tests for COVID-19 that turn out to positive has declined to 11.6 per cent from 15.7 per cent which shows that the third wave of the pandemic is slowing down in the country.  The weekly positivity rate was recorded at 15.25 per cent.

India's active caseload currently stands at 17.43 lakh cases with Kerala, Maharashtra and Karnataka accounting for close to 50% of the total number of cases. 

Kerala on Monday recorded 42,154 new infections after reporting more than 50,000 fresh COVID-19 cases daily for the last few days.

Karnataka registered over 24,000 daily cases on Monday, with 10,000 of them from the state capital, Bengaluru.

Maharashtra on Monday reported 15,140 fresh coronavirus positive cases, 7,304 less than the day before, along with 39 fresh fatalities. The state has 2,07,350 active cases.

New Delhi, in contrast, recorded only 2,779 fresh cases on Monday, 24 per cent less than the previous day's daily figure. The national capital has been seeing a decline in daily infections after witnessing a peak on January 13, when the daily count of fresh cases had soared to 28,867.

Meanwhile, India's COVID-19 vaccination coverage has crossed 166.68 crore doses, with over 75 per cent of India's adult population being fully vaccinated.

Those in the 15-18 years age group will start their second dose of the Covid vaccine from Monday.

Also read:  Kerala, Karnataka & Maharashtra account for 50% of fresh Covid cases in India