A 32-year-old Covid-19 patient from Garhwa allegedly hanged himself to death on Saturday morning at the Rajendra Institute of Medical Sciences (RIMS) in Ranchi.

The deceased, police said, was mentally disturbed as both his kidneys were malfunctioning, and he was not financially stable enough to get himself treated.

“Both his kidneys were malfunctioning. He and his wife had separated, on top of which he got infected by the coronavirus,” said the officer in charge of Bariatu police station, Birendra Mahto. “He was also faced with unemployment and financial instability,” Mahto added.

The Covid-19 tally in Jharkhand jumped to 29,103 on Saturday as at least 872 people tested positive for the virus across the state, figures released by the National Health Mission (NHM) stated. Ranchi again reported the highest number of fresh cases of infection on Saturday among the 24 districts. As many as 188 people in Ranchi and 150 in East Singhbhum were found infected on Saturday, the NHM bulletin further said.

Thirteen Covid-19 patients died of the infection on Saturday, taking the toll in Jharkhand to 310 and the mortality rate to 1.06 per cent. East Singhbhum, which has reported the highest number of deaths in the state so far, registered seven Covid-19 fatalities on Saturday. The district alone has reported 128 of the 300-odd casualties in Jharkhand, government data revealed.

The state also reported as many as 814 Covid recoveries on Saturday, taking the recovery rate to 65.92 per cent. However, Jharkhand’s recovery rate was still lower than the national average of 74.69 per cent. While Ranchi reported 188 fresh cases of infection, at least 369 patients recovered from the infection here, causing a dip in the count of active cases in the capital, the NHM bulletin revealed.

As per figures available with the health department, there were 9,607 active cases of Covid-19 infection in Jharkhand. There were 2,506 active cases in Ranchi, the highest in Jharkhand, while with 2,243 active cases, East Singhbhum had the second highest count of cases by Saturday evening.

The government has so far collected swab samples of 5.58 lakh people and tested 5.53 lakh of them. As per figures shared by the health department, the state on Saturday collected 13,251 swab samples and tested 11,434 of them. The government has intensified testing in Jharkhand in the past one month and tested more than three lakh people during this period, health officials said.