At least 10 out of 24 districts in Jharkhand did not report any fresh cases of Covid-19, while the state recorded 119 new infections on Saturday, figures compiled by the health department revealed.

Recoveries outnumbered cases in most of the districts on the day, bringing the number of active cases down at 1,249, while Ranchi remained the worst-affected district, accounting for 65 per cent of the total number of fresh cases. The district also accounted for half of the 158 Covid recoveries on Saturday.

As per a bulletin released by the National Health Mission (NHM), Ranchi reported as many as 71 cases against 78 recoveries in the past 24 hours. East Singhbhum reported 15 cases against 16 recoveries, while Dhanbad reported 10 cases against five recoveries.

While the number of patients reduced on the day, East Singhbhum reported a Covid-19 casualty, taking the death toll in Jharkhand up at 1,050, the NHM bulletin stated.

East Singhbhum accounts for 356 of the total Covid fatalities in the state– the highest among all the districts.

The government on Saturday tested swab samples of as many as 13,761 people and less than 1 per cent of them were found infected. So far, health workers have collected swab samples of 50.48 lakh people and tested 50.35 lakh of them.

Of the 1,17,599 people infected so far by the virus, at least 1,153,00, around 98 per cent, have recovered. The Covid-19 mortality rate in Jharkhand was 0.89 per cent against the national average of 1.40 per cent.

As per the NHM bulletin, the growth rate of the viral infection in Jharkhand was 0.10 per cent against the national average of 0.13 per cent. At this pace, it would take more than 700 days for the cases to double in Jharkhand, revealed government data. The doubling rate in India was 551 days.