The Covid tally in Jharkhand crossed the 1.5 lakh mark, while the active caseload jumped above 20,000 on Thursday as the state reported close to 3,500 Covid cases and 28 casualties in 24 hours, figures compiled by the National Health Mission (NHM) highlighted.

The 28 deaths reported on Thursday took the Covid toll in the state to 1320. As per a bulletin released by the NHM, at least nine of the 28 Covid victims were Dhanbad residents, while five deceased were from Ranchi. East Singhbhum reported four casualties on the day and Koderma reported two. At least five districts – Simdega, West Singhbhum, Ramgarh, Godda and Deoghar – reported one Covid death each.

Ranchi continued to report the highest share of Covid cases among the 24 districts on Thursday. As per NHM data, as many as 1393 cases in the districts took the active caseload here to 8,666. Ranchi accounts for around 40 per cent of the 20,651 active cases in the state. Meanwhile, East Singhbhum also reported 492 cases against 264 recoveries on the day. The active caseload there reached 2,504 on the day.

At least five other districts – Hazaribag, Koderma, Dhanbad, Deoghar and Bokaro – reported a triple-digit-spike in cases on the day. Ranchi and Dhanbad, however, continued to lead in terms of Covid casualties in the state. Thursday’s findings took the Covid toll in Ranchi to 335 and that in East Singhbhum to 392.

The government on Thursday tested swab samples of 36,349 Jharkhand residents and around 10 per cent of them were found infected. So far, as many as 1,51,272 people have been infected by the mysterious virus in Jharkhand and 85.47 per cent of them have recovered, reveals government data.

In the past couple of weeks, the growth rate of infection has seen a spike while the doubling rate has dropped in Jharkhand. On Thursday, the growth rate of infection in Jharkhand was 1.67 per cent against the national average of 0.91 per cent. The doubling rate in the state was 41.85 days against the national doubling rate of 76.16 days.

Meanwhile, the state on Thursday administered the first dose of vaccine against Covid-19 to as many as 30,054 people, about 41 per cent of those registered. The second dose was administered to as many as 7439 people, only 3 per cent of the over 2.7 lakh registered for the jab on the day.