Jharkhand reported 873 fresh Covid-19 cases, surpassing 2021’s highest single-day-spike of 694 cases reported on Friday, a bulletin released by the NHM stated.

At least seven Covid patients, including three from Ranchi, died during treatment on this day, figures compiled by the National Health Mission (NHM) highlighted.

The fresh cases outnumbered the 161 recoveries with a significant margin, taking the active caseload in the state to 4,613, the bulletin further stated.

As per government data, Ranchi accounted for 472 of the cases and 43 of the 161 recoveries. The active caseload in Ranchi, Jharkhand’s worst-affected district, jumped to 2,625. Among other districts, East Singhbhum reported 101 cases and one casualty against 26 recoveries. Bokaro, Chatra and Dhanbad reported one Covid casualty each on the day, taking the Covid toll in the state to 1,122, the NHM stated in its daily Covid bulletin.

No district other than Ranchi and East Singhbhum reported a triple-digit-spike in cases on the day, which jointly reported more than 65 per cent of the fresh cases in the state on Saturday.

The growth rate of Covid-19 cases in the state neared the national average after reporting a significant spike in the past couple of weeks. The growth rate in Jharkhand shot up from 0.10 per cent in February to 0.40 per cent on Saturday against the national average of 0.41 per cent.

The doubling rate of cases in the state also dropped to 171.22 days on Saturday against the national average of 167.87 days, NHM highlighted in its bulletin. As per records with NHM, the doubling rate in Jharkhand was above 2500 days in February. The Covid recovery rate dropped to 95.46 per cent on the day in Jharkhand.

The government on Saturday tested swab samples of 19,741 people on the day and more than 4 per cent of them were found infected by the Covid-19 virus. As per government data, as many as 1,26,458 people have been infected so far and 1,20,723 of them have recovered.

On Saturday, the government administered the first dose of Covid-19 vaccine to 23,430 people, including over 21,000 commoners above the age of 45 years, thereby achieving 67 per cent of its target for the day. The second dose of the vaccine was administered to 4,279 of the over 1.44 lakh beneficiaries registered for the jab. The state achieved only 3 per cent of its target for the second dose of the vaccine on the day.