COVID: India registers 12,881 cases; Govt issues new travel guidelines for international passengers

New Delhi, India on Tuesday recorded 12,881 new COVID-19 infections during the past 24 hours, pushing the country’s caseload to 1,09,50,201 while the death toll mounted to 1,56,014 with 101 more fatalities.

According to the Union Health Ministry, the active cases stand at 1,37,342. It is 1.25 per cent of the total caseload. With the rise in new mutant COVID-19 strains, the government on Wednesday issued new travel rules and Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) for international travellers to restrict the spread of UK, South African and Brazil virus variants. The guidelines, in effect from 23:59 hours on February 22, mandates travellers to fill self declaration forms and carry negative Covid reports. The past 24 hours saw 11,987 people recovering from the deadly virus, taking the total recovery count to 1,06,56,845, which is 97.32 per cent of the case tally. The fatality rate stood at 1.42 per cent. According to the Health Ministry, 16 states/UTs have not reported any death in the last 24 hours. The number of people who got vaccinated under the nation’s vaccination drive commenced on January 16 has reached 94,22,228, with 4,22,998 more people getting vaccinated in the last 24 hours. India comes second in terms of the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases, following the United States, with more than 27.82 million COVID-19 patients. Globally, the disease has infected 10,98,59,193, as per the John Hopkins University coronavirus tracker.