Coronavirus cases surge again in Telangana with ramping up of tests

Hyderabad: After a day's gap, Covid-19 cases in Telangana surged again on Tuesday as the health authorities ramped up testing.

A day after reporting 1,873 cases, the daily count hit 2,734 taking the overall tally to 1,27,697. Nine more people succumbed to the virus during the last 24 hours, pushing the death toll to 836.

The authorities ramped up the number of tests to 58,264 against 37,791 the previous day. Before that the state had been conducting nearly 62,000 tests every day for seven days.

With the numbers reported Tuesday, the tests conducted in the state so far rose to 14,23,846.

According to a media bulletin issued from the office of the Director of Public Health and Family Welfare, 26,219 primary contacts and 8,157 secondary contacts were tested during the last 24 hours. The results of 878 samples are awaited.

A total of 17 government and 35 private laboratories are conducting these tests, while the state has 1076 rapid antigen tests centres. Unlike some other states, the authorities in Telangana have not been providing breakup of the type of tests conducted.

The officials claimed that with 38,351 samples tested per million population, the number of tests conducted in the state is much higher than the daily testing target of 5,600 per day as per the World Health Organisation (WHO) benchmark of 140 per million per day.

Out of the total 1,27,697 positive cases detected so far, 88,111 that is 69 per cent are asymptomatic while the rest are symptomatic.

The health officials said the case fatality rate of the state is low at 0.65 per cent against the national average of 1.77 per cent. Out of the total fatalities, 53.87 per cent had comorbidities.

Of the fresh cases recorded in the state, Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) accounted for 347 against 360 the previous day. The decline in the number of cases despite ramping of tests show that the situation in the state capital is under control.

However, the number of cases rose in Rangareddy and Medchal Malkajgiri districts abutting GHMC to 212 and 121 respectively. Sangareddy, another district bordering the state capital, recorded only 16 new cases.

With 191 cases, Nalgonda emerged as the second with the highest number of fresh infections after Greater Hyderabad and Rangareddy.

Khammam reported 161 new cases, Bhadradri Kothagudem 117, Nizamabad 114. Karimnagar saw the cases rising by 106 while the numbers increased by 109 in Siddipet. Warangal Urban reported 112 cases, Suryapet 107 and Siddipet 109.

During the last 24 hours, 2,325 people recovered from Covid, taking the total number of recoveries to 95,162. The state's recovery rate further improved to 74.5 while the national average is 76.94 per cent.

The number of active cases in the state stands at 31,699, including 24,598 in home/institutional isolation.

Age wise Covid positive details show that 65.3 per cent of those tested positive were in the age group of 21-50 years. The Officials said that 24.71 per cent are above 51 years of age and about 10 per cent were aged below 20 years.

The officials said 64.41 per cent of those tested positive were male while the remaining 35.59 per cent were female.

According to the media bulletin, out of 20,396 beds under the government, 17,657 beds are vacant including 1,542 ICU beds and 4,556 oxygen beds.

The number of private hospitals treating Covid in the state has been further increased to 184. They have 9,621 beds, out of which 5,259 are vacant.