Telangana's Covid-19 tally surged to 2.44 lakh as 1,637 new infections were reported during the last 24 hours, health officials said on Wednesday. The state has also registered a recovery rate of over 92 per cent.

Six more people succumbed to the virus, pushing the death toll to 1,357.

The fatality rate stands at 0.55 per cent against the national figure of 1.5 per cent. According to the director of public health and family welfare, 44.96 per cent of the deaths were due to Covid while 55.04 per cent of the deceased had comorbidities.

As many as 1,273 people recovered during the last 24 hours taking the total number of recoveries so far to 2,24,686. The state's recovery rate is 92.03 per cent against the national average of 92.1 per cent.

The state now has 18,100 active cases, of which 15,335 are in home or institutional isolation.

The maximum number of new cases (292) were recorded in Greater Hyderabad. The cases also surged in districts.

Rangareddy district recorded the second highest number of infections at 136 followed by Medchal Malkajgiri (129), Bhadradri Kothagudem (118), Nalgonda (101), Karimnagar (90), Khammam (74) and Warangal Urban (56).

According to a media bulletin by the health department, a total of 45,526 samples were tested during the last 24 hours and out of them 42,380 were conducted in the government-run laboratories.

There are 18 laboratories conducting RT-PCR/CBNAAT/TRUENAT tests and 1,076 Rapid Antigen testing centres run by the government and 47 private laboratories.

The cumulative number of tests rose to 44,39,856. Samples tested per million population surged to 1,19,286.

Out of total 2,44,143 positive cases so far, 70 per cent (1,70,900) were asymptomatic and 30 per cent (73,243) symptomatic.

The data shows that 63.9 per cent of those tested positive so far were aged between 21-50 years. As many as 22.91 per cent were aged above 51 years. The positive cases include 13.18 per cent who were below 20 years.

The bed status in 61 government-run hospitals treating Covid patients shows that 7,327 out of 8,561 beds are vacant.

In 225 private hospitals, 7,091 out of 8,622 beds are vacant.