VIJAYAWADA: The active Covid-19 caseload in Andhra Pradesh continued to increase by leaps and bounds. In the 24 hours ending Saturday at 9 am, it rose by 9,007 to reach 73,143 after the State added 12,926 new cases from 43,763 sample tests.
Visakhapatnam has the highest caseload of 14,292, followed by Chittoor with 10,973, while West Godavari accounted for the lowest of 1,505 active cases even as there was a slight decline in the daily growth.
The daily positivity rate continued to hover around 30 per cent. With the fresh additions, the state’s tally increased to 21,66,194. According to the media bulletin released by the State Command Control Room, Visakhapatnam topped the chart with 1,959 new cases. Besides Visakhapatnam, four other districts -- Anantapur, Chittoor, Guntur, and Prakasam -- reported new cases between 1,000 and 2,000.
Chittoor logged 1,566 new infections, a marginal decrease since the previous day. Anantapur reported 1,379, a slight increase in the number of cases compared to Friday’s. Guntur reported 1,212, also more than the number of positives reported the previous day; Prakasam registered 1,001 new cases.
Seven other districts witnessed new cases between 500 and 1,000, even as Krishna district saw less than 500 cases. It reported 354 cases, the lowest single-day spike in the 24 hours in any of the AP districts.
East Godavari, which reported 756 new cases, became the first district in the state to cross the three lakh mark in the cumulative positive cases.
Meanwhile, there was an improvement in the number of recoveries as a thousand more people above the Friday’s figures, recovered. In the last 24 hours, till Saturday 9 am, 3,913 were declared recovered taking the gross to 20,78,513. The state saw six Covid fatalities in the 24 hours.
Three deaths in Visakhapatnam, two in Nellore, and one in East Godavari took the toll to 14,538.