Close to 150 Covid casualties and over 8000 fresh cases of infection on Wednesday took the Covid toll in Jharkhand to 2395 and the active caseload nearer to the 55,000 mark, figures compiled by the National Health Mission (NHM) revealed.

As per a bulletin released by the NHM, the state on Wednesday reported 8075 fresh cases of infection against 4362 Covid recoveries. Ranchi accounted for 1771 of the fresh cases on the day, while East Singhbhum reported 852 cases.

Ranchi and East Singhbhum not only accounted for the highest cases on the day, but also reported almost half of the 149 deaths that occurred in the state. As per NHM data, at least 46 Covid patients died in Ranchi and 23 died in East Singhbhum in the past 24 hours, taking the toll in Ranchi to 748 and that in East Singhbhum to 571.

Among other districts, Latehar reported 11 casualties, while seven people died in Dhanbad and three each in Bokaro and Chatra. At least six Covid patients died in Khunti, while Deoghar reported five casualties on the day.

The active caseload in Ranchi jumped to 18,022, while that in East Singhbhum dropped to 6380 as the district reported 882 Covid recoveries against the over 850 cases, the NHM bulletin highlighted. As per NHM data, Ranchi and East Singhbhum jointly account for almost 50 per cent of the 54,816 active cases of Covid-19 in Jharkhand.

The State on Wednesday tested swab samples of 70,757 residents and more than 10 per cent of them were found infected. The day’s findings took the Covid tally in the state above 2.21 lakh. As per government data, only 74.16 per cent of the over 2.21 lakh people infected by the virus so far in Jharkhand have recovered, while 1.08 per cent of them have died.

The growth rate of infection in Jharkhand was 2.61 per cent on Wednesday against the national average of 1.46 per cent. As per government data, it would take hardly 27 days for the Covid cases to double in Jharkhand at the current pace. The doubling rate across India was 47.94 days.

While cases continued to soar, the vaccination programme did not see a warm response from citizens on Wednesday. As per government data, as many as 12160, hardly 26 per cent of registered beneficiaries, were administered the first dose of the vaccine against Covid-19 on the day. On the other hand, the second jab was administered to 9722 people, around 3 per cent of the registered beneficiaries.