With 19,078 new COVID-19 cases, India's tally reaches 1,03,05,788

New Delhi [India], January 2 (ANI): India reported 19,078 new COVID-19 cases in the last 24 hours, taking the total number of positive cases in the country to 1,03,05,788, the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW) informed on Saturday.
The total number of active cases now stands at 2,50,183. As many as 224 people succumbed to coronavirus in the last 24 hours and the death toll has mounted to 1,49,218.
So far 99,06,387 recoveries have been reported in the country.
As many as 8,29,964 samples tested for the coronavirus on Friday and the count of samples tested so far has reached 17,39,41,658, the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) informed.
Kerala, Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal and Chhattisgarh have contributed to nearly 62 per cent of India's active cases of coronavirus.
Maharashtra continues to be the worst affected state by the pandemic with 19,38,854 cases after 3,218 new COVID-19 were reported on Saturday. So far, 49,631 people have died due to the virus in the state.
Delhi recorded 494 fresh COVID-19 cases on Saturday, the lowest daily rise in seven months, an official said. The total number of COVID-19 cases has reached 6,26,448, while the death toll has touched 10,571 with 14 new fatalities.

Not too far behind are Kerala and Uttar Pradesh have 65,238 and 13,831 active cases, respectively.
In a massive nation-wide exercise today, an end-to-end mock drill on the vaccine administration was conducted today in all States and UTs at 286 session sites spread across 125 districts. Each District conducted the dry run at three sites or more which included a public health facility (District Hospital/Medical College), Private Health Facility, and rural or urban outreach sites.
This dry run was aimed at testing the laid out mechanisms for COVID-19 vaccination roll-out in the health system and to assess operational feasibility of using Co-WIN application in field environment for planning, implementation and reporting at the block, district and state level. The dry run was also conducted to familiarize the State, District, Block and Hospital level officers on all aspects of COVID-19 roll out.
In other COVID-19 updates, the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) on Saturday said India has successfully isolated and cultured the UK-variant of Sars-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19 disease.
It is to mention that no other country has yet reported successful isolation and culture of the UK-variant of SARS-CoV-2, the ICMR informed.
Meanwhile, the Subject Expert Committee (SEC) of Central Drugs Standards Control Organisation on Saturday made recommendations to the Drugs Controller General of India to grant permission for restricted emergency use of SII, Bharat Biotech's vaccines.
As per an official release, the SEC met on Friday and Saturday and made its recommendations in respect of accelerated approval process request of Serum Institute of India (SII), Bharat Biotech International Ltd as well as about phase-III trials of Cadila Healthcare Ltd. (ANI)