India sees decline in COVID-19 cases for second straight day, records over 3.29 lakh infections

File Photo (Reuters)

New Delhi: India saw a decline in COVID-19 cases for the second straight day and recorded over 3.29 lakh infections, the data by the Union Health Ministry said on Tuesday (May 11, 2021).

There were 3,29,942 new COVID-19 cases and 3,876 deaths in the last 24 hours. The total number of coronavirus cases in the country has now increased to 2.26 crore, of which, 1.90 crore people have recovered, while 2.49 have died of the virus.

India, going through the second wave of coronavirus, now has 37,15,221 active cases. 13 states cumulatively account for over 82% of the country's total active cases.

Earlier on Monday, India's daily rise in COVID-19 cases had retreated from the 4 lakh mark and had seen 3,66,161 19 infections. 

This is to be noted that India's COVID-19 tally had crossed the 20-lakh mark on August 7 in 2020, the 50-lakh mark on September 16 and the one-crore mark on December 19. 

However, the recent unprecedented rise in cases took the figure to the grim milestone of two crores on May 4.

This comes a day after World Health Organisation (WHO) Chief Scientist Soumya Swaminathan termed the rate of infections and deaths in India as 'worrying' and called on governments to boost exercises on reporting actual numbers.

"I would say that at this point in time, the situation is very worrying, the daily number of cases and deaths that we are seeing today in India and other countries in the Southeast area region is a big concern for us and we also realise that these are underestimates. Every country in the world, in fact, the number of cases and deaths has been underestimated to its true number," Soumya Swaminathan told ANI.

Meanwhile, the cumulative number of COVID-19 vaccine doses administered in the country stands at 17.26 crore, as per the 8 pm provisional report on Monday. India, notably, is the fastest country globally to administer 17 crore coronavirus vaccine doses.

5,18,479 beneficiaries of the age group 18-44 years received their first dose of COVID-19 vaccine on Monday, which took the total number to 25.52 lakh across 30 states and UTs since the start of Phase-3 of the vaccination drive. 

(With inputs from agencies)