The Covid-19 toll in Jharkhand inched closer to 1000 on Wednesday as three more patients, including two from Ranchi, died during treatment on the day, figures compiled by the State health department highlighted.

Meanwhile, the active cases of Covid infection dropped in Jharkhand as the state reported 202 recoveries against 191 fresh cases. However, active cases increased in Ranchi for the third consecutive day as only 75 patients recovered from the viral infection here in 24 hours, while 97 fresh cases surfaced during the same period.

After Wednesday’s test results, at least 790 people were battling the infection in Ranchi, which indicates that around 45 per cent of the 1,739 active cases in the state were in Ranchi, stated government data.

The two casualties in Ranchi took the Covid toll in the district to 205, while the toll in Dhanbad reached 96 as one more death occurred there in the past 24 hours, a bulletin released by the National Health Mission (NHM) revealed. As per the bulletin, by the end of Wednesday, as many as 991 people had died of Covid-19 in the state.

At least four of 14 districts did not report even a single case of infection on the day, but five districts, including Bokaro, Dhanbad and East Singhbhum, reported a double-digit-spike in the cases. As per the NHM bulletin, at least 14 people were found infected in Dhanbad, while 10 recoveries were reported there. Dhanbad reported 16 cases against 10 recoveries, while East Singhbhum reported 10 cases against 44 recoveries.

As per latest government data, it would take more than 500 days for the number of cases to double in Jharkhand if the current trend continues, while the national doubling rate was 230.84 days. The growth rate of the virus in Jharkhand was 0.14 per cent against the national average of 0.30 per cent.

The government tested swab samples of 17,929 people on Wednesday and more than 1 per cent of them were found infected. So far, health workers have collected swab samples of 44.22 lakh people and tested 44.04 lakh of them. More than 18,000 swab samples were pending for tests in Jharkhand, the NHM bulletin highlighted.

The Covid recovery rate in Jharkhand reached 97.53 per cent on the day, which is higher than the national average of 94.60 per cent. The Covid mortality rate in the state was 0.89 per cent against the national average of 1.50 per cent, reveals data with the state health department.