The number of Covid-19 infections continued to hover over the 200 mark for the third consecutive day with Jharkhand registering 240 new cases in the last 24 hours along with three deaths on Thursday night, as per the health department's bulletin.

One death each surfaced from Ranchi, Khunti and Bokaro. Day's overall recovery figures in the state stood at 218.

With 110 new cases, Ranchi's active cases have reached 775, almost half that of 1659 live cases which exist in the state currently.

Other districts with double-digit spikes included Bokaro (13), Dhanbad (26) and East Singhbhum (31). As many as five districts, including Covid free Pakur, remained free of any new infections.

So far the state has tested 47,99,240 samples since the outbreak of the virus in March 2020 out of which 1,15,113 turned positive. Of them, 1,12,425 have been cured while 1030 deaths have taken place.

State's seven-day growth rate now stands at 0.14 per cent compared to the national average of 0.17 per cent. The seven-day doubling rate is 479.47 days that of 413.35 days pan-India. Recovery in the state 97.66 per cent, seven notches above the national average whereas the mortality rate in the state 0.89 percentage than that of 1.40 per cent in the country.

On New Year day today, state disaster management department has appealed picnickers to enforce restrain from going to crowded places, use masks mandatorily and adopt all prescribed safety protocols to curb any chances of infection. Simultaneously, the different district has also announced random covid testing at public hotspots in view of an expected surge of the crowd to in new year revelry.