Hyderabad, Mar 19 (IANS): Telangana's Covid-19 tally crossed 3-lakh mark on Friday as the state continued to see a spike in cases.

A total of 313 positive cases were registered during the last 24 hours, pushing the tally to 3,02,360.

After gap of more than two months, the state saw the daily count climbing over 300.

The surge is mainly due to government-run schools turning new hot spots. More than 150 students, teachers and other staff of about 10 schools have tested positive during last 3-4 days.

As many as 39 students of government-run hostels and a school tested positive on Wednesday.

It was on January 14 that daily count had dropped below 300 and 10 days later it plummeted to under 200. However, the surge over the last two weeks has again pushed the tally to over 300.

Greater Hyderabad reported highest number of cases at 47 during the last 24 hours while the surge continued in some other districts. Rangareddy reported 29 cases, followed by Nirmal (25), Medchal Malkajgiri (20), Kamareddy (16), Nizamabad (15), Sangareddy (13), Adilabad (10) and Mancherial (10).

Districts bordering Maharashtra saw a surge in the new infections during last few days, worrying the health authorities.

The state government is likely to decide in a day or two whether to shutdown the schools again in view of large number of cases being reported from some schools.

Two more persons succumbed to the virus during the last 24 hours, taking the cumulative death toll to 1,664. The fatality rate rose slightly to 0.55 per cent against the national average of 1.4 per cent.

While 44.96 per cent of deaths were due to Covid-19, remaining 55.04 died due to comorbidities.

The number of active cases rose further to 2,434 including 943 who are in home or institutional isolation.

A total of 142 people recovered from the virus during the last 24 hours, taking the cumulative recoveries to 2,98,262. The recovery rate dropped to 98.64 per cent but still higher than the national average of 96.2 per cent.

A total of 62,972 tests were conducted during the last 24 hours. Of this 57,488 samples were tested in government laboratories and remaining 5,484 in private laboratories.

With this the number of tests conducted in the state so far climbed to 94,82,649. Samples tested per million population rose to 2,54,772.

Bed status in 62 government hospitals treating Covid-19 shows that 7,974 out of 8,419 beds were vacant. Similarly, in 215 private hospitals 6,520 out of 7,567 beds were vacant.