The government announced on Tuesday that 20 new COVID-19 cases with the mutant strain had been identified. This takes the total number of cases with the mutant COVID-19 strain in India to 58.
NDTV reported, "Nineteen cases have been detected in two Delhi labs doing genome sequencing, 1 in Kolkata, 25 in Pune, 3 in Hyderabad and 10 in Bengaluru."
NDTV added that as of date, all known cases with the mutant COVID-19 strain were travellers who returned from the UK or their primary contacts, all of whom are in institutional quarantine.
Meanwhile, India recorded 16,375 new cases of coronavirus, the lowest in over six months, taking the country's COVID-19 caseload to 1,03,56,844, according to Union Health Ministry data updated on Tuesday.
The death toll increased to 1,49,850 with 201 new fatalities.
The number of people who have recuperated from the disease surged to 99,75,958, pushing the national recovery rate to 96.32 per cent,while the COVID-19 case fatality rate stands at 1.45 per cent.
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The COVID-19 active caseload remained below 3 lakh for the 15th consecutive day.
There are 2,31,036 active coronavirus infections in the country, which comprises 2.23 per cent of the total caseload, the data stated.
India's COVID-19 tally had crossed the 20-lakh mark on August 7, 30 lakh on August 23, 40 lakh on September 5 and 50 lakh on September 16. It went past 60 lakh on September 28, 70 lakh on October 11, crossed 80 lakh on October 29, 90 lakh on November 20 and surpassed the 1 crore mark on December 19.
(With PTI inputs)