Telangana's daily coronavirus case count drops despite more tests

The daily jump in the Covid-19 cases dropped in Telangana on Friday as the state reported 2,478 new infections during the last 24 hours.

The number of cases came down despite an increase in the number of tests. Officials said 62,543 tests were conducted during a 24-hour period ending 8 p.m. Thursday.

The state had reported 2,817 positive cases the previous day while 59,711 tests were conducted.

According to a media bulletin issued from the office of the director of public health and family welfare, 10 more people succumbed to Covid-19, taking the death toll to 866.

The fatality rate in the state is at 0.63 per cent against the national average of 1.74 per cent. Out of the total fatalities, 53.87 per cent had comorbidities.

The new cases pushed the state's tally to 1,35,884. Of them, 93,760 (69 per cent) were asymptomatic and 42,124 (31 per cent) symptomatic.

The number of new cases in Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) dropped to 267 from 452 the previous day, indicating further improvement in the situation in the state capital.

The number of cases also dropped in the state capital's neighbouring Rangareddy district from 216 to 171. However, it increased in Medchal Malkajgiri district from 129 to 190. Sangareddy, another district bordering the state capital, recorded 67 cases against 76 the previous day.

Outside Hyderabad and surrounding districts, Nalgonda was worst affected with 135 cases followed by 129 in Karimnagar and 128 in Khammam.

The number of tests conducted in the state so far crossed 16 lakh on Friday. Officials said 28,144 primary and 8,756 secondary contacts were tested during the last 24 hours. Results of 2,274 samples are awaited.

The state has so far tested 16,05,521 samples but there was no information as to how many of these were rapid antigen tests.

A total of 17 government and 35 private laboratories are conducting these tests while the state has 1,076 rapid antigen tests centres.

The samples tested per million population rose to 43,543. Officials say this is much higher than the daily testing target of 5,600 per day as per the World Health Organisation (WHO) benchmark of 140 per million per day.

The health officials said 2,011 people recovered during the last 24 hours, taking the total number of recoveries to 1,02,024. The state's recovery rate improved further to 75 per cent while the national average is 77.14 per cent.

The number of active cases in the state stands at 32,994 including 25,730 in home/institutional isolation.

Age wise Covid-19 positive details show that 65.3 per cent of those tested positive were in the age group of 21-50 years. Officials said that 24.71 per cent are above 51 years of age. About 10 per cent were aged below 20 years.

Officials said 64.41 per cent of those tested positive were male while the remaining 35.59 per cent were female.

According to the media bulletin, out of 20,396 beds under government, 17,601 beds are vacant including 1,557 AICU beds.

The government added three more private hospitals to the list of hospitals treating Covid in the state. Now a total of 194 private hospitals treating patients have 10,180 beds, out of which 5,711 are vacant.

--IANS

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