The Covid-19 tally in Jharkhand drew close to 47,000 on Thursday as over 1500 people were found infected in 24 hours. The toll jumped to 444 with six patients dying during the same duration, figures released by the health department stated.

As per government data, Ranchi alone reported 435 of the 1587 fresh cases of Covid infection on Thursday, taking the number of cases reported in the district so far above 9000. East Singhbhum reported 328 cases of infection on Thursday and the tally in the district rose to 7552.

Only 56 patients recovered from Covid infection in Ranchi, taking the number of active cases in the district above 4000 – the highest among all the districts in Jharkhand. As per figures compiled by the National Health Mission (NHM), as many as 4,156 Covid patients in Ranchi were yet to recover from the infection by Thursday night.

East Singhbhum, the district which has reported highest number of Covid casualties in the state so far, saw three of six Covid deaths on Thursday, taking the Covid toll in the district to 202, the NHM figures stated. Nearly 50 per cent of the Covid fatalities in Jharkhand have occurred in East Singhbhum, a densely populated district hit by industrial pollution.

Besides Ranchi and East Singhbhum, Hazaribag and Giridih reported a triple-digit spike in the number of Covid cases during the day, taking the tally in Hazaribag close to 2000 and above 2000 in Giridih, government data highlighted.

Despite 1121 patients recovering from the infection on Thursday, Jharkhand’s Covid recovery rate dropped to 65.45 per cent as the count of fresh cases surpassed the number of recoveries. The Covid mortality also dropped to 0.95 per cent as fewer deaths were reported on Thursday in comparison with the past few days. The national Covid recovery rate is 75.27 per cent while the national mortality rate for Covid patients is 1.85 per cent.

The government so far has collected swab samples of 10.27 lakh people and tested 10.17 lakh of them. On Thursday, health workers tested swab samples of 30,835 people and 29,248 of them came negative. Jharkhand, according to health officials, has tested more than 2.5 lakh people for Covid-19 this week.

As per figures compiled by the NHM, there were as many as 15,150 active cases of infection in Jharkhand on Thursday night. Out of the 46,480 people found infected so far, as many as 30,886 have recovered and were leading a healthy life, the government claimed.