Staff Correspondent

Officials reported 203 deaths from Covid-19 in 24 hours preceding 8:00am yesterday, taking the official death toll from coronavirus to 16,842.

The death rate stood at 1.61 percent, said a press release issued by the Directorate General of Health Services.

At least 12,198 new infections were recorded during the period, taking the total number of confirmed cases to 10,47,155.

The positivity rate yesterday was 29.21 percent while the overall positivity rate stood at 14.84 percent.

The new cases were detected after conducting 41,755 tests across the country.

At least 7,646 Covid-19 patients have recovered during the period. The total number of recoveries was 8,56,346 with an 84.91 percent recovery rate.

Among the 203 deceased, 132 were men and 71 women. Of them, six were aged between 21 and 30, 12 between 31 and 40, 28 between 41 and 50, 39 between 51 and 60, and 118 above 60, added the release.

The country has been witnessing a surge in new cases due to the spread of the Delta variant of coronavirus.

The variant brought healthcare system in India to knees and alarmed health experts across the world.