India records around 330,000 new COVID-19 infections, active cases fall

NEW DELHI - India's COVID-19 tally rose to 22,992,517 on Tuesday after 329,942 new cases were registered in the past 24 hours, while active cases fell for the first time in a few weeks, said the federal health ministry.

Meanwhile, 3,876 COVID-19-related deaths took place since Monday morning, taking the total death toll to 249,992.

There are still 3,715,221 active cases in the country, down 30,016 from the previous day. A total of 19,027,304 people have been cured and discharged from hospitals so far across the country.

The COVID-19 figures continue to peak in the country, but the federal government has ruled out imposing a complete lockdown. Some states have imposed night curfews or partial lockdowns, while the capital Delhi has been put under a third successive lockdown till May 17.

So far, over 172 million vaccination doses have been administered in India since the country started the nationwide inoculation drive in January. The third phase of vaccination for people aged above 18 began on May 1.

Meanwhile, over 305 million COVID-19 tests have been conducted across the country till Monday, out of which 1,850,110 tests were conducted on Monday alone, according to the latest data issued by the Indian Council of Medical Research on Tuesday.

Principal Scientific Advisor to India's Federal Government K. Vijay Raghavan said earlier this month that a third wave of outbreak was "inevitable" in India given the higher levels of the circulating virus, though "it is not clear on what time scale this phase three will occur".