At least half a dozen people, including two from Ranchi, died of Covid-19 infection in Jharkhand on Saturday, taking the Covid-19 toll in the state up at 945, a bulletin released by the National Health Mission (NHM) stated.

The two deaths caused by Covid-19 in Ranchi took the toll in the district to 189. Barring Ranchi and East Singhbhum, all the remaining 22 districts have reported fewer Covid-19 deaths than 100. The Covid-19 mortality rate in the state was 0.88 percent against the national average of 1.50 percent by Saturday evening, highlighted in the NHM bulletin.

East Singhbhum, Hazaribag, Jamtara, and Godda reported one Covid-19 casualty each on Saturday. The latest findings by the health department take the total count of Covid-19 fatalities in East Singhbhum alone to 350, the highest among all the 24 districts in Jharkhand. As per government data, East Singhbhum accounts for over 30 percent of Covid-19 casualties in the state.

Meanwhile, the count of active cases of Covid-19 infection dropped below 2,500 on Saturday as at least 333 patients recovered from the lethal infection in the past 24 hours. As per government records, 2,430 people were battling the infection on Saturday evening.

Ranchi reported 59 fresh cases against 171 recoveries, which brought the count of active cases in the district below 1,000. East Singhbhum reported 28 cases and 38 recoveries, while Dhanbad reported 23 cases and 40 recoveries. At least five districts, including Koderma and Latehar, did not report even a single fresh case of Covid-19 infection on the day.

As per the NHM bulletin, the government on Saturday collected swab samples of only 8,123 people, which is lower than the average number of swab samples collected in the past one month. As many as 12,509 swab samples, including the ones collected earlier, were tested on the day and 175 of them were found Covid-19 positive, the NHM bulletin further stated.

The government has so far collected swab samples of 39.08 lakh people and tested 38.95 lakh of them. Of the nearly 39 lakh people tested, as many as 1,07,332 were found infected. At least 1,03,957 have recovered from the infection in Jharkhand.

As per government data, the growth rate of the virus in Jharkhand was 0.17 percent against the national average of 0.38 percent. The doubling rate of the viral infection in the state was 408.27 days against the national average of 183.22 days. The recovery rate of Covid-19 in the state was 96.85 percent against the national recovery rate of 93.70 percent.