Hyderabad, Jan 29 (IANS): Telangana continues to see more recoveries than the new Covid cases, health officials said on Friday.

The state reported 356 recoveries during the last 24 hours while 197 new infections were detected.

The cumulative recoveries mounted to 2,89,987 while the recovery rate improved further to 98.59 per cent against the national average of 96.9 per cent.

The active cases also dropped to 2,537 including 1,083 who are in home or institutional isolation.

The fresh cases pushed the tally to 2,94,120. Two more persons succumbed to the virus during the last 24 hours, taking the death toll to 1,596.

The fatality rate remained 0.54 per cent against the national average of 1.4 per cent. While 44.96 per cent of the deaths occurred due to Covid, 55.04 per cent had comorbidities.

The daily count of cases in Greater Hyderabad remained below 50. The state capital reported 38 new cases during the last 24 hours. Rangareddy district logged 13 cases followed by Karimnagar (12) and Medchal Malkajgiri (11). The daily count in remaining districts was in single digit.

During the last 24 hours, 31,486 tests were conducted -- 27,554 in government labs and 3,932 in private labs. With this, the cumulative number of tests conducted in the state rose to 77,90,901.

Tests per million population climbed to 2,09,320.

According to officials, 70 per cent of positive cases reported in the state so far were asymptomatic.

Majority of the beds in hospitals treating Covid cases remained vacant. As many as 8,036 beds out of 8,577 beds in 62 government hospitals were vacant. Similarly, in 217 private hospitals, 6,781 out of 7,694 beds were vacant.