Jharkhand on Wednesday reported more than 3000 cases of Covid-19 infection and over 30 casualties, which took the active caseload closer to the 20,000 mark and the Covid toll up at 1292, figures compiled by the National Health Mission (NHM) highlighted.

As per a bulletin released by the NHM, Ranchi accounted for 1273 of the 3198 cases and seven of the 31 fatalities on the day. On the other hand, East Singhbhum, the districts with highest reported cases of Covid deaths, accounted for nine casualties and 368 fresh cases, the NHM bulletin further stated.

Government records reveal that the fresh cases and casualties reported on Wednesday were the highest reported in a day this year. While Ranchi was the only district to report more than 1000 cases on Wednesday, at least seven districts – Bokaro, Deoghar, Dhanbad, Koderma, Hazaribag, Ramgarh and Sahebganj – reported more than 100 fresh cases of Covid infection.

As per NHM data, Dhanbad reported five Covid fatalities on the day, while Dumka, Bokaro and Koderma reported two deaths each. Chatra, Simdega and Sahebganj reported one death each. Wednesday’s findings take the Covid toll in Ranchi to 330 and that in East Singhbhum to 388. A recent genome sequencing confirmed that both these districts have presence of the UK mutant and double mutant strains of the virus.

While the fresh cases broke all past records of 2021, the state also recorded its highest Covid recoveries in a day on Wednesday. As many as 1798 Covid patients, including 1212 in Ranchi alone, recovered from the viral infection in the day. However, the active caseload in Ranchi was still 7648 – the highest in Jharkhand – despite the recoveries on Wednesday. The active caseload in East SInghbhum was up at 2,285 as the district reported 368 cases against 156 recoveries in the past 24 hours.

As per government data, the state tested swab samples of 31,797 people on Wednesday, and more than 10 per cent of them were found infected. So far, as many as 1,47,792 people have been infected by the virus in Jharkhand and around 86.59 per cent of them have recovered.

The doubling rate of infection in Jharkhand further dropped to 45.33 days against the national average of 80.05 days on Wednesday. As per government data, the growth rate of infection in the state was 1.54 per cent against the national average of 0.87 per cent.

Meanwhile, Jharkhand administered the first dose of the vaccine against Covid-19 to 76,431 people and the second dose to 7,215 beneficiaries on Wednesday.