In deadliest month, state records 1,547 deaths in April alone

Ranchi: With 120 deaths on Friday, Jharkhand recorded the deadliest month of the pandemic with 1,547 Covid-19 deaths in April this year. The fatalities in the past 30 days were higher than Jharkhand’s death toll between March 2020 and March 31 this year, when a total of 1,113 people succumbed to the viral infection.
Meanwhile, 5,961 fresh cases pushed the active cases to 57,716 on Friday in the state.
Ranchi reported 45 deaths while Dhanbad reported 13. East Singhbhum reported 12 deaths while Bokaro saw eight deaths. Lohardaga and Deoghar reported 6 deaths each while five deaths were reported from Khunti. Three deaths each were reported from Palamu, Hazaribag and Ramgarh.
Ranchi (1,297) and East Singhbhum (1,003) reported the most number of infections followed by Hazaribag (629). West Singhbhum (264), Bokaro (261), Gumla (220), Ramgarh (218) and Deoghar (206) were the other districts which reported high number of infections.
Around 4,002 people recovered from the infection on Friday with most number of recoveries coming in from West Singhbhum (959).
Though health secretary Arun Kumar Singh wrote to the deputy commissioners and emphasised on vaccinating the population, only 20% of the targeted beneficiaries took their first dose on Friday. The turnout for the second dose of the vaccine dropped to 13,646, which made up a mere 4% of the total targeted beneficiaries for the day (3.11 lakh).
Govt, Pvt hospitals to reserve 70% beds
Health secretary Arun Kumar Singh wrote to all deputy commissioners on Friday and directed them to ensure 70% beds in government and private hospitals in the districts for treatment of Covid-19 patients. Singh also directed the DCs to ensure that government and private hospitals, which have a bed capacity of 200 and above, add 50 more Covid-19 beds. Likewise, hospitals having bed capacities of 100 and below will have to add 25 additional Covid-19 beds.