Spike in Telangana COVID cases continues

 Telangana | Written by : IANS Updated: Fri, Sep 11, 2020, 03:49 PM

Hyderabad, Sep 11 (IANS) The spike in Covid-19 cases in Telangana continued as the state reported 2,426 new cases during the last 24 hours, officials said on Friday.

With this the state's tally mounted to 1,52,602 while 13 more deaths pushed the toll to 940.

The fatality rate in the state marginally declined to 0.61 per cent against the national average of 1.67 per cent. Out of the total fatalities, 53.87 per cent had comorbidities.

While Hyderabad and surrounding districts continued to report a maximum number of cases, other parts of the state are also witnessing the surge.

During the last 24 hours till 8 p.m. Thursday, Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) saw 338 new cases. Neighbouring districts Rangareddy and Medchal Malkajgiri reported 216 and 172 cases respectively. Sangareddy, another district bordering the state capital, recorded 97 cases.

Outside Hyderabad and surrounding districts, Nalgonda recorded the highest single-day jump of 164. Karimnagar saw 129 new cases, Warangal Urban 108, Khammam 98, Nizamabad 89 and Siddipet 87.

According to the director of public health, 69 per cent of 1,52,602 cases reported so far in the state were asymptomatic.

The last 24 hours also saw 2,324 people recovering from the virus, taking the total number of recoveries to 1,19,467.

Telangana's recovery rate at 78.2 per cent is slightly higher than the national average of 77.63 per cent.

The number of active cases in the state stands at 32,195 including 25,240 in home and institutional isolation.

A total of 17 government and 38 private laboratories and 1,076 rapid antigen test centres across the state conducted 62,890 tests. These include 28,300 primary and 8,804 secondary contacts. With this the state has conducted over 20 lakh tests. However, there was no information available as to how many of these are rapid antigen tests.

The state health authorities said samples tested per million population improved further to 54,313. 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 65.3 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 and 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.

Out of 20,396 beds under government, 17,728 beds are vacant, including 1,627 ICU beds.

A total of 199 private hospitals treating Covid patients have 10,388 beds, out of which 6,101 are vacant.