Covid-19 tally crosses 1 lakh in Bihar, death toll rises to 515

PATNA: Bihar on Saturday surpassed one lakh coronavirus cases with 3,536 new cases reported in the state in the past 24 hours. With 1,01,906 Covid infection cases, Bihar has become the eighth state in the country after West Bengal to touch the grim benchmark.
Maharashtra was the first to cross 1 lakh mark, followed by Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Delhi and Uttar Pradesh.
The number of Covid- 19 cases has doubled in the state in last 45 days from 50,987 to 1,01,906 on Saturday.
With a discharge rate at 67.39%, the state’s active cases dropped to 32,716. Altogether 68,675 people have recovered including 3,368 discharged from the health facilities in Bihar after their subsequent tests results came negative.
On Saturday, total 15 fatalities were recorded in the state, including two in Patna in the past 24 hours, taking the death count due to the disease to 515. Among the deceased, two each were from Munger, Siwan, Saran, West Champaran, and one each in Arwal, Gaya, Bhojpur and Jamui. The fatality rate in Bihar is at 0.5%, which is equal to the death rate in Patna, with 96.
Patna has crossed 16k mark with 493 positive cases in a day, taking the total of those infected to 16,361. The active cases stood at 4,022 as 12,248 people have recovered.
Principal secretary of health department Pratyaya Amrit on Saturday told this newspaper that the positivity has reduced to 3% in Bihar from 7.75 on August 1. “As we have ramped up testing in the state, the positivity rate has coming down. At one point in mid- July, it was nearly 15%,” he said.
He added: “The heralth department is planning to start sero survey, which is done by the health team to find out the level of spread in the districts, with an aim to monitor the trend in prevalence of Covid. The survey will start from August 17 and continue till August 22.”
Altogether 1,13,498 samples were tested in Bihar on the past 24 hours, which is second highest since August 13 with testing of 1,21,320 swab samples. Bihar has reached 1 lakh testing on August 12 and 16,12,250 samples have tested so far in the state since March.
Other districts, which reported maximum number of Covid- 19 cases include Madhubani (187), Muzaffarpur (166), East Champaran (157), Purnia (152), Kaimur (151), West Champaran (141), Begusarai (139), 138 each in Gaya and Sitamarhi, Madhepura (122), Saharsa (115) and Saran (100).