Jharkhand on Thursday reported twice as many Covid recoveries as fresh cases of infection, which took the Covid recovery rate in the state above 90 per cent. However, fatalities continued to rise, keeping the state’s Covid mortality rate higher than the national average.

As per government data, as many as 4326 Covid patients recovered from the infection on the day while 2056 residents were found infected. The state, however, reported 60 Covid casualties which took the Covid toll in Jharkhand to 4714, a bulletin released by the National Health Mission (NHM) highlighted.

The doubling rate and growth rate of Covid cases and the recovery rate in Jharkhand have improved in the past fortnight in comparison to the national figures. As per NHM data, Jharkhand’s Covid growth rate was 0.67 per cent against the national average of 0.80 per cent, while the doubling rate in the state was 103.63 days against the national average of 86.92 days.

The Covid recovery rate in the state was 90.38 per cent against the national average of 86.70 per cent, but the Covid mortality rate in Jharkhand was still 1.45 per cent against the national Covid mortality rate of 1.10 per cent, revealed government data.

Ranchi, the district that has reported highest number of Covid fatalities so far, accounted for 14 of the 60 casualties on Thursday. On the other hand, East Singhbhum accounted for eight deaths and Bokaro reported nine. By the end of Thursday, the Covid toll in Ranchi stood at 1469 while that in East Singhbhum reached 944, highlighted the NHM bulletin. Two fresh casualties took the Covid toll in Dhanbad to 358, while the toll in Bokaro was 248.

The active caseload dropped to 5,227 in Ranchi as the district reported 275 cases of infection against 796 recoveries in the past 24 hours. East Singhbhum reported 182 cases against 600 recoveries, which brought the active caseload there down to 2,616, the NHM stated in its bulletin.

The state on Thursday tested swab samples of 50,504 residents and less than 5 per cent of them were found infected by Coronavirus. So far, the state has tested almost 80 lakh residents for Covid-19 and 3.24 lakh of them were found infected.

Meanwhile, Jharkhand administered the first dose of vaccine against Covid-19 to 48,259 residents and more than 41,000 of them were in the age bracket of 18 years to 44 years. So far, the state has administered the first dose of vaccine to over 31 lakh beneficiaries and around 2.71 lakh of them were in the age bracket of 18 years to 44 years. The second jab was administered to 1954 beneficiaries on Thursday.