688 fresh Covid cases, 17 deaths in Jharkhand

RANCHI: Jharkhand reported 688 fresh Covid-19 cases and 17 deaths in the last 24 hours with Garhwa emerging as the top district with the highest number of new infections.
Of the total cases, 530 new infections and nine deaths are reported on Sunday. The others, 158 cases and eight casualties, were reported late on Saturday night.
East Singhbhum reported the maximum casualties on Sunday, too, with three more deaths being reported from Jamshedpur.Late on Saturday night, the district had reported four casualties.
Among the nine deaths on Sunday, three are from East Singhbhum, two from Ranchi and one each from Simdega, Pakur, Giridih and Deoghar. “All nine casualties reported on Sunday were above 55 years of age and were suffering from more than one co-morbidities and were admitted to various Covid hospitals in the state after testing positive for the viral infection,” a health department official said.
The positive percentage of samples collected on Sunday stood at 10.7 with 530 samples returning positive out of the 4,953 tested on Sunday.
Of the fresh cases reported on Sunday, Ranchi detected 71 next to Garhwa which reported 85 cases. Palamu (63) East Singhbhum (49) and West Singhbhum with 44 fresh cases were among the districts which reported a high number of cases .
With the fresh cases on Sunday, the cumulative caseload in the state rose to 18,156, of which 9,175 are active, 8,998 have recovered and 177 have succumbed to the viral infection.