India records 311,170 Covid-19 cases as daily rise remains below 400,000-mark for 7th day

India's tally of cases of the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) has reached 24,684,077 as the country logged 311,170 cases in the last 24 hours, the Union ministry of health and family welfare (MoHFW) dashboard showed on Sunday morning. The daily fatalities due to Covid-19 were recorded at 4,077 taking the overall related death toll to 270,284 the dashboard showed further.

This is for the seventh consecutive day that India has recorded a rise of less than 400,000 daily cases. From May 6-9, the country saw a rise of more than 400,000 fresh infections per day. On these four days, India recorded 412,262, 414,188, 401,078 and 403,738 infections, respectively, from the preceding 24 hour-period.

Meanwhile, the number of samples tested in the last 24 hours stood at 1,832,950, up from 1,693,093 from the single-day period before that, according to figures tweeted by the government-run Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) on Sunday. Total 314,850,143 samples have been tested till May 15, 2021, the ICMR's tweet noted.

The relative fall in the country's daily cases come even as a number of states and Union territories (UTs) have imposed, or extended, curbs like lockdowns, mini-lockdowns, 'corona curfew' etc. to check the spread of Covid-19. In the last two days, Maharashtra, which has the highest Covid-19 caseload, has seen a rise of less than 40,000 infections, while Delhi has recorded less than 10,000 cases in the last two days. Earlier this week, the Maharashtra government extended the ongoing lockdown-like restrictions till at least June 1, while the current lockdown in the Capital is scheduled to end at 5am on May 17. However, with a dip in daily cases, the Delhi government could extend the lockdown for a fourth time.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, too, has chaired several "high-level" meetings to review the pandemic situation across the country.