India reports 774 new Covid cases, 2 deaths

New Delhi, Jan 6:  The Union Health Ministry on Saturday said the country reported recorded 774 new Covid-19 cases and two deaths in the last 24 hours.

The two new fatalities were reported from Tamil Nadu and Gujarat, according to the Ministry data.

On Friday, 12 deaths were reported -- five from Kerala, four from Karnataka, two from Maharashtra, and one from Uttar Pradesh.

Meanwhile, the total number of active cases further fell to 4,187 from Friday's 4,334.

As of now, the total number of coronavirus cases in India, since the initial outbreak in January 2020, has reached 4,50,17, 378, while the overall death toll has risen to 5,33,387.

The new JN.1 sub-variant is a descendent of the Omicron subvariant known as BA.2.86 or Pirola, with Kerala being the first state to report a case.

Kerala, Karnataka witnessed JN.1 variant cases, while Delhi, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Rajasthan, Telangana, Odisha and Haryana were also affected, as per the Indian SARS-CoV-2 Genomics Consortium (INSACOG).

Data suggests that the JN.1 variant is not causing a significant rise in new cases or hospitalisations and deaths.

These states have collectively reported 619 cases of the sub-variant by Thursday, with Karnataka leading with 199 cases, followed by Kerala with 148 cases.

INSACOG's data revealed that 239 Covid cases in December 2023, and 24 in November 2023, were identified with the presence of the JN.1 variant.

The overall recovery from Covid has reached over 4.4 crore individuals, reflecting a national recovery rate of 98.81 per cent.

The country has administered a total of 220.67 crore doses of Covid vaccines, as per the available data.