India reports 347,254 new coronavirus cases, 703 deaths in last 24 hours

This is the second consecutive day when over 300,000 daily cases were registered in more than eight months, according to Xinhua.

Besides, 703 deaths due to the pandemic since Thursday morning took the total death toll to 488,396.

There are still 2,018,825 active COVID-19 cases in the country with a rise of 94,774 active cases during the past 24 hours. This is the 24th consecutive day when the number of active cases rose amid the third COVID wave in the country.

A total of 36,058,806 people have been cured and discharged from hospitals so far, out of which 251,777 were discharged during the past 24 hours.

Meanwhile, the country's Omicron tally has reached 9,692, with an increase of 4.36 per cent since Thursday. Most of the Omicron cases have been reported from the states of Maharashtra, West Bengal, Rajasthan and Delhi.