2,273 new Covid cases, 12 deaths in Telangana

Hyderabad: Telangana on Wednesday reported 2,273 new Covid-19 cases, taking the state’s tally to over 1.62 lakh.

During the last 24 hours, 12 people succumbed to the virus, pushing the death toll to 996. The case fatality rate in the state stands at 0.61 per cent against the national average of 1.63 per cent.

The majority of the new cases were reported from Hyderabad and surrounding districts. Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) reported 325 new cases, up from 277 the previous day. Its neighbouring districts Rangareddy and Medchal Malkajgiri reported daily jump of 185 and 164 cases respectively. Sangareddy, another district bordering the state capital, recorded 58 cases.

Outside Hyderabad and surrounding districts, Nalgonda topped the list with 175 cases followed by Karimnagar (122), Warangal Urban (114), Khammam (97), Nizamabad (91) and Siddipet (91).

The state also saw 2,260 people recovering from the virus during the same period. With this the total number of recoveries have gone up to 1,31,447.

The state’s recovery rate has further improved to 80.71 per cent against the national average of 78.52 per cent.

The number of active cases in the state stands at 30,401 including 23,569 in home/institutional isolation.

According to the director of public health, 70 per cent of 1,62,844 cases reported so far in the state were asymptomatic.

The authorities conducted 55,636 tests during the last 24 hours ending 8 p.m. Tuesday. With this the number of samples tested so far mounted to 21,76,222.

A total of 17 government and 38 private laboratories and 1,076 rapid antigen tests tested 55,636 samples, including 24,480 primary and 6,676 secondary contacts. However, no break-up of RT PCR and rapid antigen tests was available.

The state health authorities said samples tested per million population improved further to 61,310. 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.

Age wise Covid positive details show that 65.23 per cent of those tested positive were in the age group of 21-50 years. The officials said that the ratio of those above 51 years dropped to 21.82 per cent against the earlier 24.71 per cent. Those below 20 years are now 12.95 per cent against 10 per cent earlier.

Officials said 64.83 per cent of those tested positive were male while the remaining 38.17 per cent were female.

Out of 20,396 beds under the government, 17,823 beds are vacant, including 1,491 ICU beds.

The number of private hospitals treating Covid patients rose to 224 with the government’s 20 more hospitals added to the list. They have 11,288 beds, out of which 7,029 are vacant.