Telangana on Thursday reported 2,795 new Covid-19 cases and eight deaths, taking the state’s tally to 1,14,483 while the death toll has climbed to 788.

A day after recording the highest single-day spike with 3,018 cases, the numbers declined across the state. This was despite the authorities conducting more than 60,000 tests in the last 24 hours. Till 8 pm on Wednesday, 60,386 tests were conducted while 61,040 samples were tested on Tuesday. In total, 11,42,480 tests have been done until now, according to the state’s health department.

Facing flak for its poor testing rate, the Telangana government has doubled the daily number of tests. During the last five days, more than 2.5 lakh tests were conducted.

As many as 16 governments and 31 private laboratories were conducting RT-PCR/CBNAAT/TRUENAT type of tests while there were 1,076 rapid-antigen test centers. However, unlike the neighboring Andhra Pradesh, the authorities in Telangana have not given the breakup of the type of tests conducted.

They claim that with 30,772 samples tested per million population, the state had conducted a higher number of tests against a daily testing target of 5,600 as per the World Health Organisation (WHO) benchmark of 140 per million per day.

Health officials said the Covid-19 cases fatality rate in the state came down further to 0.68 per cent against the national average of 1.84 per cent. Of the fatalities, 53.87 percent had comorbidities.

The number of active cases in Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) declined to 449 from 475 on Wednesday. Rangareddy and Medchal Malkajgiri districts abutting GHMC reported 268 and 113 new cases respectively. Sangareddy, another district bordering the state capital, reported 34 new cases.

Outside GHMC and the surrounding districts, Nalgonda was the worst-affected district with 164 new cases, followed by Khammam with 152 cases, Karimnagar (136), Warangal Urban (132), Siddipet (113) and Nizamabad with (112). Mancherial reported 106 cases, Mahabubabad 102, Jagtiyal 89, Suryapet 86, Bhadradri Kothagudem 72, and Wanaparthy 55.

During the last 24 hours, 872 people recovered from Covid-19, taking the total number of recoveries to 86,095. The state’s recovery rate stands at 75.2 per cent against the national average of 76.28 per cent.

The number of active cases in the state stands at 27,600, including 20,866 in-home/institutional isolation.

Age-wise COVID-positive details show that 65.3 percent of those testing positive were in the age group of 21-50 years. Terming this as a susceptible age group, authorities have urged them not to go out unless absolutely necessary. They were advised to strictly exercise precautions like wearing face masks and maintain social distancing.

Among Covid-19 positive cases, 24.71 percent were above 51 years. Nearly 10 percent were aged below 20 years.

Officials said 64.41 percent of those testing positive were male while the remaining 35.59 percent were female.

According to the media release, of 20,396 beds in government-run hospitals, 17,958 beds were vacant, including 1,590 ICU beds and 4,756 oxygen beds.

As many as 171 hospitals treating Covid-19 in the state have 9,136 beds, of which 4,890 were vacant.

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has changed its Covid-19 testing guidelines, which no longer recommends testing for most people without symptoms.

The new guidelines, updated earlier this week, asks people to get tested if they have coronavirus symptoms or have had close contact (within 6 feet of an infected person for at least 15 minutes), or have been asked or referred to get testing by their healthcare provider, local or state health department, reports Xinhua news agency.

“Not everyone needs to be tested,” said the new guidelines.

Previously, the CDC said viral testing was appropriate for people with recent or suspected exposure, even if they were asymptomatic.

The updated guidelines prompted concerns from some doctors and experts, who warned asymptomatic carriers to play a major role in spreading Covid-19.

Testing and isolating those silent emitters are vital to containing the spread of the pandemic, experts said.

The US currently accounts for the world’s highest number of cases and deaths at 5,821,195 and 179,708 respectively.