Hyderabad, Nov 15 (IANS): Telangana's daily count of new coronavirus cases dropped further to 661 on Sunday as authorities conducted fewer tests on account of Diwali, taking the state's tally to 2,57,374.

During the last 24 hours, the laboratories conducted only 21,264 coronavirus tests, about 50 per cent of the daily tests conducted on weekdays.

Three more patients succumbed to the virus during the period, taking the state's COVID-19 death toll to 1,404.

The fatality rate dropped to 0.54 per cent as against the national average of 1.5 per cent.

Officials said the percentage of deaths due to COVID-19 was 44.96 while the remaining 55.04 had comorbidities.

Greater Hyderabad reported 167 new cases. Rangareddy recorded the second highest 57 cases, followed by Medchal Malkajgiri (45) and Nalgonda (34).

According to the daily media bulletin from Public Health and Family Welfare Department, 1,637 more patients recovered during the 24-hour period that ended at 8 pm on Saturday.

The state's recovery rate improved further to 93.46 per cent as against the national average of 93.1 per cent.

The active cases total 15,425, of which 12,899 are in home or institutional isolation.

The cumulative number of tests mounted to 48,74,433. Eighteen government-run and 50 private laboratories and 1,076 Rapid Antigen test centres are conducting the tests.

Out of 21,264 samples tested during the last 24 hours, 19,703 were tested in government-run laboratories and 1,561 in private ones.

Samples tested per million population ratio rose further to 1,30,962. The daily testing target for the state is 5,600 per day as against the World Health Organisation (WHO) benchmark of 140 per million per day.

Out of 2,57,374 positive cases so far in Telangana, 70 per cent (1,80,162) were asymptomatic while the remaining 30 per cent (77,212) were symptomatic.