Amaravati, Aug 21 (IANS): Covid-19 claimed 91 more lives in Andhra Pradesh while 9,544 more people tested positive, officials said on Friday.
The fresh fatalities pushed the death toll to 3,092 while the new infections have taken the tally to 3,34,940.
Andhra Pradesh is the third worst-affected state in the country after Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu in terms of the number of Covid cases.
The mortality rate in the state, however, is 0.92 per cent against the national average of 1.90 per cent. Officials said the state's mortality rate is much lower than that of Gujarat (3.43 per cent) and Maharashtra (3.32).
According to the media bulletin released by the State Command Control Room, 16 fatalities were reported from Chittoor district, 13 from West Godavari district and 12 from Nellore. Eleven people succumbed in East Godavari district, eight in Anantapur, seven in Kadapa, five in Srikakulam and four in Prakasam. Guntur, Krishna and Kurnool districts reported three deaths each.
During the last 24 hours, 1,312 cases were reported from East Godavari district, 1,131 cases from West Godavari, 1,103 from Chittoor, 919 from Kurnool, 797 from Prakasam, 761 from Nellore, 738 in Visakhapatnam, 704 in Anantapur, and 571 in Srikakulam.
The period also saw 8,827 people recovering from the virus. With this, the cumulative recoveries rose to 2,44,045. The recovery rate in the state stands at 72.86 per cent against the national average of 74.30 per cent.
The state now has 87,803 active cases with maximum 16,366 active cases in East Godavari, followed by 9,932 in Chittoor, 7,040 in Kurnool and 7,003 in Vizianagaram.
During the last 24 hours ending 9 a.m. Friday, the authorities conducted 55,010 tests including 36,099 VRDL/Truenat/NACO and 18,911 rapid antigen tests. With this the state has so far tested 31,29,857 samples.
Andhra Pradesh stands fourth after Uttar Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra in the number of tests. However, it ranks first in terms of tests per million with a figure of 58,612. With a 10.70 per cent positivity rate, it fares better than states like Maharashtra (18.81 per cent), Karnataka (11.39) and Telangana (11.86).