As many as 24 people succumbed to the disease taking the total number of fatalities to 525,223.
The cumulative tally of active patients continued to rise with 113,864, up from 111,7111 on Sunday.
Meanwhile, with 13,958 people recuperating in the last 24 hours, the total number of recoveries rose to 42,879,477.
Recoveries, deaths and active patients constitute 98.53%, 1.21% and 0.26% of the overall tally.
The daily positivity rate presently stands at 4.85% as the latest daily infections were from 332,978 samples that were tested on Sunday.
the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), as many as 863,999,907, samples have been tested till now.
Last week, Union Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan reviewed the status of the COVID situation through a video conference with 14 states depicting a surge in cases.
The Central government advised caution and continuous alertness to the states reporting a surge in COVID cases during the past few weeks, and to step up vigil against COVID.
Dr Vinod Paul, Member (Health), NITI Aayog was also present at the review meeting.
Dr Paul advised states reporting a spike in COVID cases to be watchful of the emerging pandemic situation.
He stressed that the major action point is to focus on strengthening proactive surveillance as per the Revised Surveillance Strategy issued by Union Health Ministry on 9th June 2022.
Dr Paul said that routine surveillance constitutes the steel frame of our COVID response and management strategy and needs continuous attention.
The four-fold strategy highlights surveillance of incoming inter-national travelers; community-based surveillance; sentinel site surveillance (health facility-based surveillance and lab-based surveillance); and Whole Genome Sequencing. States were advised to scan for and report all SARI and ILI cases from all district hospitals, major private hospitals and medical colleges across the districts, and keep a close watch on those geographies where these clusters are emerging.
States were also strongly advised to strictly monitor the epidemiological profile of admitted COVID patients and report the clinical manifestation to Health Ministry, rather than random or anecdotal reporting. This will help to identify at an early stage any out-of-the-ordinary or different clinical presentation of the patients.
Noting that the states where the increase in second and precaution COVID doses are being taken are reporting the less surge in COVID cases, they were advised to rapidly accelerate the vaccination coverage, especially of the 60+ elderly population, and second dose among the 12-17 years population group.
Underscoring that there was no shortage of COVID vaccines, the states were advised to ensure that vaccines that expire first are administered first preventing any wastage of the precious national resource.
States were also reminded to undertake Whole Genome Sequencing through the mapped labs of INSACOG network as per the Revised Surveillance Strategy of the Union Health Ministry, which has already been shared with the States.
States were advised to ensure that claims under 'Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Package: Insurance Scheme for Health Workers Fighting COVID-19' were expeditiously processed to ensure that insurance dues are paid to those public healthcare providers, including community health workers, who have died due to Covid.
States were also directed to focus on the implementation of COVID appropriate behaviour to control the spread of infection, especially in view of the forthcoming festivals in many states.
