89 dead, 10K +ve cases in Andhra as state breaches 2 lakh cases

VISAKHAPATNAM: Andhra Pradesh on Friday reported the highest single-day toll of 89 deaths and 10,171 fresh Covid-19 cases, also becoming the third state in the country to soar past the two-lakh caseload.

The

cumulative tally

of the state stood at 2,06,960 cases behind Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu, the two states having clocked the two-lakh coronavirus cases mark long ago. The state’s death toll also jumped to 1,842.

On Friday, AP also recorded the second-highest single-day cases after Maharashtra, which had 10,483 cases.

Andhra Pradesh breached the one-lakh case mark on July 27, nearly 135 days after the state reported its first case on March 12.

But it took only 11 days for the state to add the next one-lakh cases to touch the two lakh milestone on Friday. During the same 11 days, Andhra Pradesh conducted about 6.75 lakh tests, almost 29% of the total tests conducted as of Friday.

The growing prevalence of the disease in the state can be gauged from the fact that Andhra Pradesh was the 10th state when it crossed the 10,000 case mark on June 25, and fourth state when it hit the grim one lakh milestone on July 27. But it has now zoomed into the top three states having the highest caseload. Andhra Pradesh is currently testing about 70,000 samples a day by leveraging the rapid antigen testing kits.

About 7,594 Covid-19 patients were declared cured on Friday and authorities said there are currently 84,654 active cases in the state with 1,20,464 cumulative recoveries and 1,842 deaths.

While there has been an upward trend in the case positivity rate in the last one month, the mortality remained stable below 1% against the national average of over 2%. East Godavari continued to remain the top Covid-19 hotspot of the state with a cumulative caseload of 28,850 cases, followed by Kurnool 24,679 and Anantapur 22,273.

Krishna district

crossed the double century mark in coronavirus deaths on Friday after Kurnool.