Bihar Covid-19 cross 50,000-mark with highest daily cases

PTI, Patna: Bihar recorded its biggest one-day spike of 2,986 COVID-19 cases on Friday, which pushed the state's tally to 50,987, the health department said.

Thirteen more fatalities in the state raised the coronavirus death toll to 298, the department said.

The COVID-19 tally in Bihar has witnessed more than five-fold increase since the beginning of the month, while the death toll nearly quadrupled during the period.

Patna reported the maximum number of fresh cases at 535, raising the count in the district to 8,764. Other districts recording a sizeable number of new cases include Gaya at 126, Madhubani at 122, Muzaffarpur at 125, Nalanda at 146, Rohtas at 156 and Vaishali at 123.

The rise in death toll was on account of two fatalities each reported from Bhagalpur and Gaya and one each from Araria, Bhojpur, Buxar, Kaimur, Nalanda, Nawada, East Champaran, Saran and Vaishali.

So far, Patna district has been the worst-affected in the state. Besides reporting the highest number of cases, it also accounts for the maximum deaths at 41.

Currently, Patna is left with 3,426 active cases, nearly one-fifth of the states aggregate of 17,039.

It is followed by Bhagalpur, which has reported 2,551 cases and 28 deaths.

Among other badly affected districts are Gaya at 2083 cases and 21 deaths, Chief Minister Nitish Kumar's native Nalanda at 2,144 cases and 16 deaths and Muzaffarpur at 2,123 cases and 11 deaths.

The huge spike has been reported on a day the state- wide lockdown, imposed on July 16 in view of a spurt witnessed in the preceding few weeks, comes to a close.

However, the health department insisted that there was no reason for panic and the biggest single-day spike needed to be viewed in the backdrop of a record 22,742 samples tested in the last 24 hours.

Altogether 5.48 lakh samples have been examined so far in the state, where the opposition has been accusing the ruling dispensation of deliberately keeping the testing rate low.

Moreover, 33,650 people have also recovered from the disease, 1,977 of them in the last 24 hours, the department underscored in its bulletin.

The state's recovery rate was 66 per cent, the department added.