Hemant Soren's wife, Kalpana, their two children and four family members tested positive for Covid-19 on Saturday, but the chief minister tested negative.

About a dozen members of the chief minister's staff have also tested positive, officials said. All of them have reported mild symptoms.

"Covid tests of everyone at CM House and his staff/officials were done on Saturday, results of which came late in the evening. CM wanted to get himself tested as a precaution as he has been moving among people and most importantly, one of his cabinet ministers (Banna Gupta), has also tested positive," said an official.

As many 5,801 new cases of infections and three deaths were reported on Saturday, as per the state health department's Covid-19 bulletin issued on Satuday night. Deaths were reported from East Singhbhum (two) and Seraikela-Kharsawan (one). The number of active cases n the state currently stand at 21,098.

Among the districts with a higher number of new infections reported in the last 24-hours are Ranchi (1,731), East Singhbhum (1,043), Bokaro (278), Dhanbad (281) and West Singhbhum (177).

Health officials maintain that the speed at which infections were growing in the state was indicative of community transmission. But they are still unaware if the spike wasd being caused by the Delta or Omicron variant since Jharkhand doesn't have a genome sequencing machines, and reports on the samples sent to a Bhubneshwar lab were still awaited.

"The state reported close to 12 deaths _ three yesterday and eight on the previous day," said a doctor at Ranchi Sadar Hospital. "During the second wave when Delta was at play, death rates were higher. Government of India has still not ruled out complete phase out of Delta. Unless, we get genome sequence reports, we can't say for sure which variant is more active in Jharkhand. But going by the speed of infections, it indicates Omicron," he added.