India reports 258,089 COVID cases in a day

India has logged 258,089 new cases of the coronavirus in the last 24 hours, taking its total tally of cases to 37.38 million.

Deaths from COVID-19 rose by 385 to 486,451, the country’s health ministry said on Monday.

India's COVID curve showed marginal improvement as the country’s infection rate is around 5 percent lower than yesterday.

But fears over an omicron-fuelled wave of cases continued to grow as the country reported 8,209 new cases of the variant on Monday, Indian media report.

The daily positivity rate was up from 16.28 percent to 19.65 percent while the weekly positivity rate was recorded at 14.41 percent. The national recovery rate has decreased to 94.27 percent.

Maharashtra, one of the worst-hit states by the COVID pandemic, recorded 41,327 new coronavirus infections, 1,135 less than the day before, and 29 deaths. The overall caseload now stands at 72,11,810 and the death toll at 1,41,808. Eight new omicron cases have been reported in the state, raising the tally of such infections to 1,738.

Delhi reported 18,286 COVID-19 cases and 28 deaths, while the positivity rate dropped to 27.87 percent from 30.64 per cent a day ago, according to health department data.