India saw 20,036 new cases of Covid-19 on Friday, and 256 people succumbed to the deadly disease in the last 24 hours, said the latest update from the Health Ministry.

The total cases are at 1,02,86,710, while active cases remain below 3 lakh, at 2,54,254.

A total of 23,181 people recovered from the disease, taking the total coronavirus recovery toll to 98,83,461.

New cases in India are below the 25,000-figure for the 12th consecutive day, while 24-hour deaths remain below 300 for the 7th consecutive day. Only four states are currently reporting more than a 1,000 new cases. These account for 54.5% of the total new cases reported in India.

Maharashtra reported 58 new deaths, Kerala 30, West Bengal 29, Chhattisgarh 21 on Friday. Meanwhile, 27 states and UTs reported less than 10 new deaths, of which 10 states or UTs reported zero new deaths.

Kerala reported the highest number of new cases in December at 1.6 lakh, at an average of 5.1k new cases/day, followed by Maharashtra at 1.1 lakh, and 3.5k new cases per day. West Bengal reported 68.6k new cases in December at an average of 2.2k new cases/day.

Maharashtra reported the highest number of deaths in December (2.4k), followed by Delhi (1.4k), West Bengal (1.3k).