COVID-19 cases continued to surge in Telangana on Saturday, with as many as 1,178 new patients and nine fatalities being reported. This takes the tally of total positive cases in the state to 33,402, and the number of deaths up to 348.
Out of the 1,178 new patients, 736 were reported from the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) limits, followed by Ranga Reddy and Medchal districts with 125 and 101 patients respectively.
The state government bulletin said 20,919 people have been discharged so far, while 12,135 are still under treatment, either at home or at hospitals. Nine COVID-19 deaths were recorded in the state on Saturday.
According to the bulletin, 11,062 samples were tested on Saturday, which is the highest number of samples tested till date for a single day.
Cumulatively, 1,62,171 samples have been tested.
As of Saturday, the government hospitals have established a capacity of 17,081 COVID-19 beds, of which 11,928 are isolation ones and 3,537 are oxygen beds, according to the bulletin. It also said that there are 1,616 ICU (Intensive Care Unit) beds.
The bed occupancy is 10.7 percent as of Saturday, with only 1,024 of the total beds occupied, while 89.3 percent of the available beds are vacant.
The bulletin said the government has made elaborate arrangements for treating COVID-19 patients and sufficient beds are available in government hospitals.
The number of daily tests doubled since Friday as authorities have started using Rapid Antigen Test (RAT) kits at 40 urban primary health care centres in parts of Greater Hyderabad and in neighbouring Rangareddy and Medchal districts.
The number of infections declined for the third day in a row, despite the number of tests being increased. The state had recorded 1,278 cases on Friday and 1,410 the previous day. Earlier, the daily jump in cases had reached nearly 2,000.
More people were discharged than the number of positive cases in a single day. As many as 1,714 people were discharged, taking the cumulative number of recoveries to 20,919.
With IANS and PTI inputs