Hyderabad, Dec 20 (IANS): Telangana's Covid-19 recovery rate has crossed 97 per cent with 643 people recovering from the virus during the last 24 hours, officials said on Sunday.

The state continues to see more recoveries than daily count of new infections. With the latest recoveries, the cumulative number rose to 2,73,013.

Telangana's recovery rate of 97.01 per cent is higher than the national average of 95.5 per cent.

The state reported 592 new positive cases during the last 24 hours, taking the tally to 2,81,414.

Three more persons succumbed to the virus during the same period, pushing the toll to 1,513.

The state's Covid fatality rate remains 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 per cent were on account of comorbidities.

The state now has 6,888 active cases and of them 4,719 are in home or institutional isolation.

Over 90 per cent of beds in government-run and private hospitals treating Covid-19 in the state remained vacant.

Out of 8,561 beds available in 61 government hospitals treating Covid, 7,793 beds were vacant. A total of 768 people were undergoing treatment in these hospitals.

Similarly, in 219 private hospitals treating Covid patients, only 1,401 beds were occupied.

Out of 7,920 beds, 6,519 were vacant.

Of the new cases reported during last 24 hours, Greater Hyderabad accounted for 119. The daily count in districts remained in single or double digits.

Medchal Malkajgiri district saw the second highest number of new cases at 70 followed by Rangareddy (57), Warangal Urban (40), Karimnagar (26) and Sangareddy (20).

Of the 41,970 tests conducted during the last 24 hours, government-run laboratories accounted for 38,250 while remaining 3,720 samples were tested in private labs.

Samples tested per million population ratio rose further to 1,73,107.

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

Out of total 2,80,195 positive cases so far, 70 per cent (1,96,990) were asymptomatic while the remaining 30 per cent (84,424) were symptomatic.