Record 978 new cases in a day push Jharkhand’s Covid-19 tally to over 15,000
Ranchi recorded second-highest number of cases after discovering 141 new patients, including 22 staff of chief minister’s residence.
Jharkhand on Wednesday reported highest ever single-day spike of Covid-19 cases after 978 new patients, including 22 staff of chief minister Hemant Soren’s residence, contracted the disease.
The state also reported seven deaths, including three in Ranchi, and one each in East Singhbhum, West Singhbhum, Giridih and Khunti districts.
With discovery of these cases, the state’s total count reached 15,048. This included 9,086 active cases, 5,826 recovered cases and 136 deaths.
According to state health department’s bulletin released on Wednesday night, Godda district reported 339 cases, the highest ever single-day spike in any district.
Ranchi recorded second-highest number of cases after discovering 141 new patients, including 22 staff of chief minister’s residence.
“Of the over 50 samples taken from people associated with CM house, 22 were found infected with coronavirus on Wednesday,” said Ranchi civil surgeon Dr VB Prasad.
On Tuesday, chief minister Soren along with his family members and several staff of his office and residence had undergone Covid-19 test - second time in less than a month. While test reports of Soren and his family members came on the same day in evening and turned to be negative, other reports came on Wednesday.
Earlier on August 2, 17 people working at the chief minister’s residence, including some cooks and security guards, were found infected with Sars-CoV-2 virus.
Samples of these people were collected after two staff members, including the driver of chief minister’s wife Kalpana Soren, were found infected with this respiratory disease on July 30.
Early in July, Soren had placed himself in home quarantine after coming in contact with a minister and his party’s legislator who were found infected with the virus.
The entire chief minister’s office (CMO) had been temporarily shut down and officials were sent to home quarantine.
Samples of the chief minister and several other officials were also collected for testing but reports turned negative.
With addition of 141 new cases on Wednesday, Ranchi has so far reported 2,724 cases including 1,813 active cases, 883 recoveries and 28 deaths.
Besides, East Singhbhum and Bokaro districts reported 72 and 71 cases respectively.
According to the bulletin on August 5, the pandemic’s seven days growth rate stood at 5.97% and disease’s doubling period was 11.95 days. The recovery rate was 38.71% and mortality rate was 0.90%.
