Ranchi's Covid tally crossed the 3000 mark on Saturday as 308 of state's 926 cases of infection reported on the day were from the capital, health officials said.

Meanwhile, East Singhbhum reported only 24 cases of infection on Saturday, and the tally in the district jumped to 2724, a bulletin released by the National Health Mission (NHM) highlighted. Giridih reported 286 fresh cases on the day.

As per government figures, Ranchi and East Singhbhum are two of the worst-affected districts in Jharkhand. These two districts account for a third of state's Covid-19 cases, government data reveals.

The Covid tally in state reached 17468 on Saturday and the number of active cases drew close to 9000 as 822 patients recovered from the viral infection, the NHM bulletin, released on Saturday late evening, stated.

Jharkhand has reported an unprecedented increase in Covid cases since June this year. On June 30, there were around 2500 cases in State, which means that Covid cases have increased almost seven times in a month. However, officials attribute the increase to intensified testings.

The Covid toll also reached 160 on Saturday as six more patients died during treatment in 24 hours, health officials said.

The government has so far collected samples of 3.8 lakh people for tests and tested around 3.5 lakh of them. The recovery rate in State stood at 47.65 per cent on Saturday, while the Covid mortality rate was 0.91 per cent.

Dhanbad has seen the highest number of Covid cases after Ranchi and Jamshedpur. At least 53 cases surfaced in the district on Saturday, taking the tally to 942 there. Ranchi and East Singhbhum continue to be the only two districts where over 1000 cases have been reported so far.