Amaravati, Aug 18 (IANS): The Covid-19 pandemic claimed 88 more lives in Andhra Pradesh while 9,652 new positive cases pushed the state's tally to over 3 lakh on Tuesday, officials said.

With the fresh fatalities, the death toll mounted to 2,820 while new cases have taken the tally to 3,06,261.

According to the media bulletin released by the State Command Control Room, 14 more fatalities were reported from Chittoor district, while 11 people succumbed in Prakasam district and nine each in Anantapur, Guntur, and Kurnool.

Seven deaths were reported from Nellore district, six from West Godavari, five each from Srikakulam, Vizianagaram and Visakhapatnam districts, four in East Godavari, three in Krishna and one in Kadapa.

During the last 24 hours ending 9 a.m. on Tuesday, the authorities conducted 56,090 tests including 26,671 rapid antigen tests. With this, the state has so far tested 29,61,611 samples.

The period also saw 9,211 people recovering from the virus, taking the recoveries to 2,18,311.

The state now has 85,130 active cases with maximum 15,254 active cases in East Godavari, followed by 9,366 in Chittoor, 7920 in Guntur and 6,931 in Vizianagaram.

During the last 24 hours, East Godavari district reported maximum cases (1,396). As many as 990 new cases were reported from Chittoor, 928 from Visakhapatnam, 895 from Guntur, 830 from Kurnool and 805 in West Godavari.

Andhra Pradesh stands third after Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra in the number of tests. However, it ranks first in terms of tests per million with a figure of 55,461. With a 10.34 positivity rate, it fares better than states like Maharashtra, Karnataka and Telangana.

Andhra Pradesh's mortality rate is 0.92 per cent against the national average of 1.92 per cent. Officials said the state's mortality rate is much lower than that of Gujarat (3.51 per cent) and Maharashtra (3.35).