Jharkhand Governor Draupadi Murmu was among the near 4,000 people who tested positive for Covid-19 in the state on Saturday. The sexagenarian was admitted to Bagwan Mahavir Medica Superspecialty Hospital in Ranchi and is undergoing treatment under Dr. Vijay Mishra, who also treated Education Minister Jagarnath Mahto in Ranchi before he was shifted to Chennai.

Doctors from the hospital said that Murmu was stable. However, she was kept under observation and administered the antibiotics and multivitamins prescribed to Covid patients.

Meanwhile, as many as 30 Covid patients died during treatment on Saturday, taking the Covid toll in the state up at 1,406, a bulletin released by the National Health Mission (NHM) stated. At least 3,838 cases against 1,234 recoveries took the active caseload to 25,619 on the day, the NHM bulletin highlighted.

Ranchi alone reported as many as 1,410 fresh cases of infection on the day – the highest among the 24 districts in Jharkhand. The district also reported five Covid casualties in 24 hours. On the other hand, East Singhbhum reported 521 cases and six casualties on the day, the NHM stated in its bulletin.

While at least four Covid patients died in Bokaro, Sahebganj, Ramgarh and West Singhbhum reported two deaths each on Saturday. Dhanbad, Godda, Dumka, Khunti, Koderma and Pakur reported one Covid casualty each on the day.

The active caseload on Saturday crossed the 10,000 mark in Ranchi, which is at least 7000 more than East Singhbhum, the second worst-affected district in terms of caseload. As many as 10,510 Ranchi residents were battling the viral infection by the end of Saturday, while the count of patients in East Singhbhum was 3,373.

As per government data, the state on Saturday tested swab samples of at least 37,152 people and more than 10 per cent of them were found infected. So far, more than 1.58 lakh Jharkhand residents have been infected by Covid-19 and around 82.99 per cent of them have recovered.

The second wave of Covid-19 has also triggered an unprecedented rise in the growth rate of infection in Jharkhand, reveals government data. On Saturday, the growth rate of cases in Jharkhand was 1.89 per cent against the national average of 1.03 per cent. The doubling rate of cases in the state was down to 36.93 days against the national average of 67.94 days.

On Saturday, the state administered the first dose of vaccine against Covid-19 to 37,243 people, hardly 37 per cent of those registered for the jab. The second jab was administered to 8,819 beneficiaries, only 3 per cent of the nearly 3 lakh registered for the dose.