Hyderabad, Dec 13 (IANS): Four more people died of COVID-19 while 573 new infections were reported in Telangana during the last 24 hours, officials said on Sunday.

The fresh fatalities pushed the state's death toll to 1,493 while cumulative tally of cases mounted to 2,77,724.

The fatality rate stands at 0.53 per cent against the national average of 1.5 per cent. According to the director of public health and family welfare, 44.96 per cent of the deaths were due to COVID while the remaining 55.04 were on account of comorbidities.

Of the new cases reported, Greater Hyderabad accounted for 127. Medchal Malkajgiri district saw the second highest number of new cases at 67 followed by Rangareddy (58), Warangal Urban (33), Khammam (33) Karimnagar (22), Bhadradri Kothagudem (19) and Sangareddy (17).

Officials said 609 people recovered from the virus during the last 24 hours, taking the cumulative recoveries to 2,68,601.

The recovery rate stands at 96.71 per cent against the national average of 94.9 per cent.

The state now has 7,630 active COVID cases and of them 5,546 are in home or institutional isolation. Over 90 per cent of beds in government-run hospitals treating COVID-19 in the state remained vacant.

Out of 8,561 beds available in 61 government hospitals treating COVID, 7,762 beds were vacant. A total of 799 people were undergoing treatment in these hospitals.

Similarly, in 220 private hospitals treating COVID, only 1,285 beds were occupied. Out of 7,939 beds, 6,654 were vacant.

According to director of public health and family welfare, 47,186 samples were tested during the last 24 hours, taking the cumulative number of tests to 61,28,703. Samples tested per million population ratio rose further to 1,64,661.

The daily testing target for the state is 5,600 per day as per the World Health Organization (WHO) benchmark of 140 per million per day, officials said

Eighteen government-run laboratories, 54 private laboratories and 1,076 Rapid Antigen test centres are conducting tests in the state.

Of the tests conducted during the last 24 hours, government-run laboratories accounted for 43,630 while remaining 3,556 samples were tested in private labs.

Out of total positive cases so far, 70 per cent (1,94,407) were asymptomatic while the remaining 30 per cent (83,317) were symptomatic.

The data shows that 63.9 per cent of those tested positive so far were aged between 21-50 years. As many as 22.91 per cent were aged above 51 years. The positive cases include 13.18 per cent who were below 20 years.

Of the total cases, 60.44 per cent were male and 39.37 per cent female.