Ranchi and East Singhbhum continued to witness a spike in the number of Covid-19 active cases on Thursday despite the count of active cases dipping in Jharkhand, figures released by the state health department stated.

As per figures compiled by the health department, as many as 1349 people were found infected by the lethal virus across Jharkhand on Thursday, taking the Covid-19 tally in the state to 76,438. However, at least 1386 Covid patients recovered from the infection during the same duration, bringing the total number of active cases in the state down to 12,841.

As many as 362 people were found to be infected in Ranchi against 229 recoveries, while East Singhbhum reported 123 cases and only 41 recoveries. The findings take the number of active cases in Ranchi up to 3,624 and that in East Singhbhum to 2,540. The figures indicate that these two districts account for around 50 per cent of the total active cases of Covid-19 infection in Jharkhand.

Koderma district reported the highest number of Covid recoveries in 24 hours. A bulletin released by the National Health Mission (NHM) stated that as many as 264 patients recovered in the district in 24 hours, while only 36 fresh cases surfaced. The number of active cases of infection in the district dropped below 500 on Thursday.

Meanwhile, the Covid toll in Jharkhand jumped to 652 after four patients, including three from East Singhbhum, died during treatment on Thursday. East Singhbhum alone has reported 282 Covid casualties so far, the highest among all the 24 districts in Jharkhand. The toll rose to 18 in Ramgarh, where one patient died on Thursday.

Despite four casualties occurring in 24 hours, Jharkhand’s Covid-19 mortality rate dropped to 0.85 per cent, the NHM bulletin stated. The Covid recovery rate in the state jumped to 82.34 per cent, which is higher than the national Covid recovery rate of 81.60 per cent.

The state government has so far collected swab samples of 19.62 lakh people and tested 19.49 lakh of them. On Thursday, health workers tested swab samples of 23,482 people and 22,133 of them came negative.

As per data compiled by the NHM, the doubling rate of Covid-19 infection in Jharkhand was 37.24 days against the national average of 41.34 days. The past seven days growth rate of the virus in Jharkhand was 1.88 per cent, against the national average of 1.67 per cent, the data further said.