Jharkhand registered the highest single-day surge in the number of Covid cases on Monday with 189 people, including 40 from Ranchi alone, testing positive.
While no Covid deaths were reported on Monday as per government figures, at least two Covid-infected patients died between Sunday night and Monday morning, health officials said. The Covid death toll in the state now stands at 33.
Fresh Covid cases surfaced in 21 of 24 districts from Sunday midnight till 10pm on Monday, said officials from National Health Mission (NHM), adding that 39 fresh cases were reported from Hazaribagh and 20 from Pakur.
According to an NHM bulletin, as many as 43 patients recovered from Covid infection on Monday and the count of active cases reached 1,579.
Monday's findings take the count of Covid-19 cases in Jharkhand to 3,963. The Covid mortality rate in state is 0.83 per cent and the recovery rate is 59.32 per cent, the NHM bulletin highlighted.
Jharkhand has witnessed a surge of more than 100 Covid cases almost every day in July so far, health officials said, adding that non-migrants too were testing positive for the virus in non-containment zones.
The government has so far collected samples of 1.93 lakh people and tested 1.84 lakh of them. Samples of chief minister Hemant Soren and his family were also collected for tests earlier this month after a minister and an MLA tested positive for Covid-19. Besides, several policemen have also tested positive for the virus in Jharkhand, compelling the government to seal police stations.
The first Covid-19 case in Jharkhand was reported from Hindpiri on March 31. A Malaysian woman, who had attended the Tablighi Jamaat congregation in New Delhi, was the first patient here. Soon, there was a flurry of cases in Hindpiri and the locality was sealed. However, cases have now reduced considerably in the locality. It is no longer a containment zone, officials said.
A second wave of Covid cases hit Jharkhand with the return of migrant workers. At least five lakh migrants returned to the state since the imposition of the lockdown, and more than 2000 of them tested positive for Covid-19, officials said.
