A notification issued by the National Health Mission (NHM) stated that the Jharkhand government on Tuesday had halved the price for Covid-19 tests across the state, through RT-PCR at private facilities, thereby bringing it down from Rs.800 to Rs.400 per test.

This is the second time that the Hemant Soren government slashed the price for the Covid-19 test. Earlier this month, on December 2, the government had slashed the price from Rs.1050 to Rs.800 for the tests being done at private laboratories and diagnostics centres.

At a time when the state administration lowered the price for the tests, figures compiled by the Jharkhand health department, at least 209 fresh cases of Covid-19 infection surfaced on Tuesday. However, the number of active cases dropped down to 1578, with 211 Covid patients recovering from the infection on the day.

A Covid patient, from Ranchi, died during treatment during the day, thereby taking the Covid-19 death toll in the state to 1001 and that in Ranchi to 207, mentioned a bulletin released by the NHM. The bulletin further stated that the Covid mortality rate in the state, however, was 0.89 per cent against the national average of 1.50 per cent.

Ranchi reported the highest number of fresh cases as well as the highest number of recoveries among all the 24 districts of Jharkhand on Tuesday. The districts reported 98 cases of infection against 113 recoveries, and the number of active cases here dropped to 763, highlighted, the government data.

Among other districts, East Singhbhum reported around 38 cases with 24 recoveries while Dhanbad reported 15 cases against 21 recoveries. At least 14 people were found infected in Bokaro while 10 patients recovered there on the day, the NHM bulletin revealed.

At least five districts of Jharkhand did not report even a single case of Covid-19 infection on the day, while 14 districts reported a single-digit-spike in cases. With 763 active cases, Ranchi accounted for about half of the total active cases in Jharkhand by the end of Tuesday. Barring Ranchi and East Singhbhum, all the remaining 22 districts had fewer active cases than 100. At least 166 patients were battling the virus in East Singhbhum, highlighted the government data.

The government on Tuesday tested swab samples of 17261 people and more than 1 per cent of them were found infected with the deadly virus. So far, health workers have collected swab samples of 45.44 lakh people from across the state and have tested around 45.33 lakh of them. The number of swab samples pending for tests has also dropped from 14000 to 11,000, health officials informed.

As per government data, the growth rate of Covid-19 virus in Jharkhand was 0.14 per cent against the national average of 0.25 per cent. The doubling rate of the virus in Jharkhand was 490.84 days against the national average of 279.17 days. The Covid-19 recovery rate in the state was 97.69 per cent against the national average of 95.10 per cent.