Even as Mumbai and Delhi continued to show a dip in new cases, Gujarat reported its biggest jump in daily new cases since the start of the pandemic. The State reported 17,119 new cases and 10 deaths on Tuesday; the state’s previous high was 14,605 cases recorded on April 30.

This comes at a time when Mumbai continued to report a dip in new cases at 6,149 with a test positivity rate (TPR) at 12.89 per cent and seven deaths. The metro has witnessed a sustained decline in new cases since it hit a recent peak of 16,460 on January 13.

Delhi, too, reported a further decline in new cases on Tuesday at 11,684, with a higher TPR of 22.47 per cent. Delhi had recorded a high of 28,867 cases on January 13.

The daily Covid cases in Tamil Nadu have been over 23,000 for the last one week. On Tuesday also the State recorded 23,888 new cases and 29 deaths, with Chennai adding 8,305 new cases and 8 deaths. Chennai's TPR was recorded at 28.7 per cent.

West Bengal, after registering a sharp spike in cases at 23,467 on January 13, has reported a sustained dip in new cases. Also, there has been a steady decline in tests conducted, which stood at 35,515 on Monday, down from 53,876 on Sunday.

Overall, India's addition of new daily COVID-19 cases has slowed down for the second day, after 2,38,018 new cases were recorded in the 24 hours completed Tuesday morning. This is 7.77 per cent lower than 2.58 lakh new cases reported on Monday. This is the second dip in the addition of new cases after Sunday's 2.71 lakh cases. The Health Ministry data showed 310 deaths in the past 24 hours.

A total of 16,49,143 tests were conducted, which put the daily test positivity rate at 14.43 per cent, which was recorded at 19.65 per cent yesterday.

On the vaccination front, the COWIN dashboard data showed a total of 72.80 lakh doses were administered till 8 pm on Tuesday, taking the total doses administered to 1,58,81,78,539, which includes 91,73,82,676 first doses and 66,52,74,739 second doses, and 55,21,124 precaution doses.

In a Twitter post, the Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya said over 50 per cent of the adolescents aged between 15-18 years have received their first dose of vaccine. "Well done, my Young Friends! Your enthusiasm for vaccination is inspiring people all over India," he said in a Twitter post. Cowin data showed 3.17 crore adolescents have received their first jab of Covaxin.

On Tuesday, the country also reached another milestone in precaution doses, with over 50 lakh doses being administered to healthcare and frontline workers and citizens aged 60 years or above.

(With inputs from Kolkata and Chennai Bureaus)