Andhra reports 10K new Covid cases for second day in row

Amaravati, Aug 27 (IANS) For the second consecutive day, Andhra Pradesh on Thursday reported over 10,000 Covid-19 cases while the virus claimed 92 more lives.

During the last 24 hours ending 10 a.m. on Thursday, the state saw a surge of 10,621 cases, taking the state’s tally to 3,93,090. The state had on Wednesday reported 10,830 cases, the highest single-day jump.

With 92 fresh fatalities, the death toll in the state rose to 3,633.

Andhra Pradesh is the third worst-affected after Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu in terms of number of cases and has in fact reached closer to Tamil Nadu. It has the fifth highest death toll in the country.

Officials said despite a large number of fatalities, the mortality rate of Andhra Pradesh was still low at 0.92 per cent against the national average of 1.83 per cent.

According to the media bulletin released by the State Command Control Room, 13 fatalities were reported from Kurnool, 11 from Nellore and 10 from East Godavari district.

Nine people succumbed in Chittoor, seven each in Kadapa and West Godavari districts, six each in Anantapur, Prakasama, nd Visakhapatnam, five people in Guntur and four each in Krishna, Srikakulam and Vizianagaram districts.

Chittoor is the worst-affected district in terms of fatalities with 369 deaths so far, closely followed by East Godavari (364), Guntur (355) and Kurnool (355).

During the last 24 hours, 1,089 cases were reported from East Godavari district, pushing the district’s tally to 54,656, the highest in the state. As many as 1,020 cases were reported from Prakasam and 934 from Nellore.

The 24-hour period also saw 8,528 people recovering from the virus. With this, the cumulative recoveries rose to 2,95,248. The recovery rate in the state improved to 75.11 per cent while the national average is 76.24 per cent.

The state now has 94,209 active cases with maximum 17,816 active cases in East Godavari, followed by 8,945 in Chittoor, 8,380 in Prakasam, 7,482 in Visakhapatnam and 7,408 in Vizianagaram.

During the last 24 hours, the authorities conducted 61,300 tests comprising 39,244 VRDL/Truenat/NACO tests and 22,056 rapid antigen tests. With this, the state has so far tested 34,79,990 samples.

Andhra Pradesh stands fourth after Uttar Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra in the number of tests conducted so far. However, it is ahead of them in terms of tests per million with a figure of 65,168. With a 11.30 per cent positivity rate, it fares better than states and UTs like Maharashtra (18.92 per cent), Karnataka (11.64) and Chandigarh (12.47).

–IANS

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