The daily count of COVID-19 cases in Telangana came below the 1,000-mark on Monday as the state reported 983 new cases. This is for the first time since June that new cases have dropped below the 1,000 mark in a day.
Eleven new deaths were also recorded, pushing the death toll to 551. The COVID-19 tally in the state presently stands at 67,660 positive cases.
The state had last reported below 1,000 cases on June 30 when 945 people had tested positive. Since then there has been a steady rise in new infections being reported.
According to a medical bulletin issued by the health department on Monday, 983 people tested positive during the last 24 hours, ending 8 pm on Sunday.
The number of active cases stands at 18,500. This includes 11,911 who were in home/institutional isolation. More than 84% of those who are under home isolation are asymptomatic.
In fact, more people recovered than the new positive cases in a day. Officials said 1,019 people recovered from COVID-19, taking the total number of persons recovered to 48,609.
The number of tests carried out by the state has also come down. Only 9,443 tests were conducted against over 20,000 per day during the last few days.
Officials claim that the state's testing numbers are still higher than the target of 5,600 per day as per the World Health Organisation (WHO) benchmark.
The state has so far conducted 4,87,238 tests. Test results of 1,414 samples were awaited.
According to the Director of Public Health and Family Welfare, 16 government and 23 private laboratories conducted RT-PCR, CBNAAT and TRUENAT types of tests while there are 320 centres doing rapid antigen tests.
It was only after July 15 that the state started revealing the number of daily tests after facing rebuke and criticism from the Telangana High Court and opposition parties alike.
From barely carrying out 3,000-4,000 tests per day, the authorities ramped up the testing to over 20,000 per day. The media bulletin, however, provides no break-up of the types of tests.
In a relief to the Greater Hyderabad region, the number of daily new cases slumped to 273. New infections registered across 32 districts were in double or single digits. Rangareddy and Medchal Malkajgiri districts, bordering Greater Hyderabad, reported 73 and 48 new cases respectively.
On August 1, the state saw the highest-ever spike of 2,083 in daily COVID-19 cases but the number of tests conducted was 21,011. These numbers came down to 1,891 and 19,202 respectively on August 2.
On the fatality rate, the officials said at 0.81%, it was far below the national average of 2.13%. The state also has a high recovery rate of 71.8% as against 65.44% at the national level.