Hyderabad, Aug 3 (IANS): For the first time in more than a month, the daily count of Covid-19 cases in Telangana came down below 1,000-mark as the state reported 983 new cases on Monday.

With this the Covid-19 tally in the state rose to 67,660. Eleven fresh fatalities pushed the cumulative death toll to 551.

The state had last reported below 1,000 cases on June 30 when 945 people had tested positive. Since then there has been a spike in new infections.

According to a medical bulletin issued by the health department on Monday, 983 people tested positive during the last 24 hours, ending 8 p.m. on Sunday.

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 recoveries to 48,609.

The number of tests, however, has also come down. Only 9,443 tests were conducted as against over 20,000 per day during the last few days.

Officials claim that the number is still much 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 last month that the state started revealing the number of daily tests. From 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.

The number of daily new cases in Greater Hyderabad slumped to 273. The new infections registered in 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 per cent it was far below the national average of 2.13 per cent. The state also has a high recovery rate of 71.8 per cent against 65.44 per cent at the national level.

The number of active cases stands at 18,500. This includes 11,911 who were in home/institutional isolation. More than 84 per cent of those who are under home isolation are asymptomatic.