The Covid-19 claimed 15 more lives in Jharkhand on Friday, taking the toll in the state to 532, while nearly 1000 people were found infected across the state, figures with the health department stated.

At least four of the 15 Covid casualties were reported from East Singhbhum, the district that accounts for nearly 50 per cent of state's Covid mortalities. As many as 238 of the 532 Covid deaths have occured in East Singhbhum, while three casualties in Ranchi took the toll here to 85 on Friday, the health department stated in its daily Covid bulletin.

While the tally jumped to 59040 after Friday's test results, the number of recoveries reached 43328 as 1213 Covid patients recovered from the viral infection and were discharged from hospital, the government data highlighted.

East Singhbhum not only reported the highest number of casualties on Friday, but also the highest number of fresh cases of infection. As many as 201 of the 961 Covid cases reported on Friday were from this district.

Ranchi, which has the highest number of Covid cases in Jharkhand, reported 197 fresh cases on Friday. However, the count of active cases dropped in the district as 329 Covid patients recovered here, taking the number of active cases of infection to 3679. The tally in Ranchi was 12,562 by the time this report was filed.

The government has so far collected swab samples of 13.33 lakh people and tested 13.20 lakh of them. On Friday, health workers tested 14960 people for Covid-19 and 13999 of them tested negative.

As per government figures, the Covid recovery rate in Jharkhand was 73.38 per cent against the national average of 77.32 per cent. The Covid mortality rate in the state was 0.90 per cent, while the national mortality rate was 1.72 per cent.