11 more die of Covid-19 in Telangana, 1,931 new cases

Hyderabad, Aug 13 (IANS) Eleven more people died of Covid-19 in Telangana while 1,931 tested positive for the virus, officials said on Thursday.

With the new fatalities the death toll rose to 665 and the cumulative case tally mounted to 86,475.

The case fatality rate in the state stands at 0.76 per cent against the national average of 1.97 per cent. Officials said 53.87 per cent of the deceased had comorbidities.

During the last 24 hours ending 8 p.m. Wednesday, the case load in Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) and surrounding districts slumped while the daily count spiked in other districts.

The GHMC recorded 298 new cases against 479 the previous day. Medchal Malkajgiri and Rangareddy bordering GHMC reported 71 and 124 cases respectively. Sangareddy, another district which shares borders with the state capital, reported 86 new infections.

After a day’s gap, the cases spiked again in other districts. Warangal Urban was the second worst affected district after Greater Hyderabad with 144 new infections. There were 89 new cases in Karimnagar, 84 in Nalgonda, 64 in Suryapet, 59 in Jangaon, 56 in Jogulamba Gadwal and 52 in Jagtiyal.

According to the media bulletin released by the Director of Public Health and Family Welfare, the new cases were reported from all 33 districts.

A total of 39 testing laboratories and 323 rapid antigen testing centres conducted a record 23,303 tests against the state’s target of 5,600 as per the World Health Organisation (WHO) benchmark of 140 tests per million per day.

Test results of 706 samples were awaited. The state has so far conducted 6,89,150 tests.

Officials said 1,780 people recovered from Covid-19 during the last 24 hours, taking the cumulative recoveries to 63,074.

The state further improved its recovery rate to 72.93 per cent against the national average of 70.37 per cent. The number of active cases now stands at 22,736 including 15,621 who are in home/institutional isolation. More than 84 per cent of those under home isolation are asymptomatic.

Age wise Covid positive details show that 65.9 per cent of those tested positive were in the age group of 21-50 years. Those above 51 years account for 24.4 per cent. About 10 per cent were aged below 20 years.

Officials said 65.10 per cent of those tested positive were male while the remaining 34.90 per cent were female.

According to the media bulletin, out of 20,396 beds in the government-run hospitals, 17,734 beds were vacant.

While 118 private hospitals treating Covid-19 patients have a total of 7,879 beds and out of them 3,426 beds were vacant.

–IANS

ms/dpb