The daily COVID-19 tally continued to drop for the fifth consecutive day in Andhra Pradesh, as the state reported 54 cases on Friday morning. The state nodal officer reported that of the 7,320 samples tested in the past 24 hours ending 10 a.m. Friday, 54 samples tested positive.
The bad news, however, is that the death toll continues to rise, with 3 more deaths reported during this period.
With 16 cases, Anantapuram district reported the highest number of Covid cases over the past 24 hours, followed by Visakhapatnam with 11, and West Godavari district with 9 cases. Top Covid hotspots Kurnool and Krishna reported 7 and 6 cases respectively, while Guntur reported only one case. Chittoor reported 3 cases.
Meanwhile, Vizianagaram district which had reported cases for the first time on Thursday, reported one more case on Friday too. With this, the district's tally stands at 4.
The past week has witnessed decreasing number of positive cases in Andhra Pradesh, even as it has raised the test sample numbers. On Thursday, 56 positive cases were detected while on Wednesday, the tally was 60 cases. Similarly, the tally on Tuesday and Monday was 67.
On average, the state tests around 7000 samples per day and has the country's highest test ratio of 2,934 tests conducted per million population. So far, the state has conducted 1,56,681 tests.
The death toll has, however, increased to 41, with 3 deaths reported in the past 24 hours. Two people died in Kurnool district while one death was reported from Visakhapatnam district.
Even as the cumulative tally of COVID-19 cases touched 1,887 on Friday morning, the number of people declared cured and discharged from hospital has been on the rise in Andhra Pradesh.
The past 24 hours saw 62 persons discharged, taking the overall tally of discharged persons in the state to 842. With this, the active number of cases stands at 1,004, down from 1,015 on Thursday.
With the latest update, Kurnool district's cumulative tally stands at 547, followed by Guntur and Krishna districts with 374 and 322 cases respectively. Five of the state's 13 districts did not report any new cases in the last 24 hours.
( With inputs from IANS )