Several police personnel and journalists in Ranchi gave samples for Covid-19 test on Sunday as six policemen in the state and two media professionals in Dhanbad tested positive on Saturday.

In Ranchi, five police stations — Bariatu, Argora, Hindpiri, Chutia and Dhurwa — were sanitised as the infected policemen were attached to these places.

Contact tracings were also being done to identify people who may have come in their contact, S.K. Jha, the senior superintendent of police of Ranchi, told reporters.

Besides police personnel posted in those police stations and those in barracks, their family members were also being isolated.

On Saturday, the police discouraged people from entering the police stations and requested them to speak and hand over complaints outside.

A reporter and a photographer have also tested positive in Dhanbad on Saturday following which over 80 people from media gave their samples on Sunday.

“They volunteered for getting tested after someone they had met turned out to be positive,” one of their colleagues said over phone from Dhanbad.

“No, I didn’t meet them in the past few days but there’s no point in taking the risk,” he said after giving samples for the Covid test on Sunday.

As it appeared from the data released by the state government, the coronavirus situation in Jharkhand is better compared to many other states in the country.

The state conducted 154,618 tests of which 2,739 were found positive till 9pm on Saturday. Of the positive patients, there were 686 active till that time while 2,035 recovered and only 18 died.

The seven-day growth rate (compared with the figures on the same day previous week) in Jharkhand was 2.26 per cent compared to 3.52 per cent nationally. Similarly, doubling rate in the state was 30.99 days against the national rate of 20.05 days.

The recovery rate in Jharkhand till Saturday was 74.29 per cent compared to 60.81 per cent in the country while death rate was just 0.65 per cent compared to 2.88 per cent nationally.

All are, however, not equally impressed with these figures.

“The rate of testing in the state is much less compared to the national rate and more tests would surely identify more positive cases,” said B.B. Chaudhary, an active member of the Jharkhand Janadhikar Mahasabha, an umbrella organisation of activists and civil society outfits.

The exact death rate could be known if samples were taken from all dead people in the state for testing, he added.