With 14 Covid deaths and 1,175 new cases, Jharkhand records biggest 1-day spike in toll & infections

RANCHI: Jharkhand recorded the biggest single-day spike in Covid-19 casualties and new infections with 15 deaths and 1,175 fresh infections recorded on Friday. This is the third time the state has recorded 1,000+ positive cases since the outbreak began on March 31 – on August 8, Jharkhand recorded 1,084 fresh cases and 14 casualties.
The number of Covid-19 cases in Jharkhand has risen to 22,125; of which 8,223 are active, 13,678 have recovered and 224 have succumbed to the viral infection.
On Friday, East Singhbhum alone reported eight casualties, followed by state capital Ranchi, Deoghar and Ramgarh with two deaths and Hazaribag with one. “All the patients during the course of treatment and more than 80% of them were suffering from different comorbidities,” a health department official said.
The spike in cases and deaths comes on a day when Covid testing figures jumped to the highest till date with almost 30,000 samples tested in a single day. The positivity rate for the 29,715 samples tested stood at 3.95%, far lower than the 8% being recorded in the last few days.
The steep increase in the number of active cases in has come as a challenge for health department and district administration officials as they are worried over the beds available for treatment. “With an increase of 595 active cases, we are expecting more patients to be diagnosed with the virus in the days to come. We will need to be better prepared in terms of isolation as well as hospital beds,” said a district administration official.
State capital Ranchi and East Singhbhum continued to dominate the figures with 276 and 169 cases respectively. Giridih too touched the three-figure with 107, followed by Koderma (83), Ramgarh (78) and Hazaribag (66) cases.