Andhra Pradesh recorded 10,093 Covid-19 cases on Wednesday, the biggest single day addition from any south Indian state till now, during this pandemic.
Wednesday’s numbers from Andhra Pradesh are also the largest accumulation to the nationwide Covid-19 tally for the day.
The highest single day spike nationwide was 10,576 cases reported from Maharashtra on July 22.
However, AP’s alarming figure is attributed to its huge testing numbers – 70,584 samples tested between Tuesday and Wednesday morning. 33,385 are RT-PCR, Truenat, NACO’s AIDS tests, while 37,199 are rapid antigen tests.
Overall, the state’s positivity rate is at 6.61 per cent – lesser than the nationwide average of 8.63 per cent. According to the state health officials, this is because of the massive testing exercise the state took up, concentrating the tests in the containment zones and on the vulnerable groups.
The Jaganmohan Reddy government has till Wednesday morning conducted 18.2 lakh tests on its population of 5.3 crore. This averaged to 34,083 samples tested per million population, the highest in the country among the states.
Andhra Pradesh has added 65 more deaths, taking its Covid-19 death toll to 1213. Health officials point these mortalities to co-morbidities and patients delaying their admission to a hospital.
The state, adding new cases and deaths in shocking numbers lately, has surpassed the one lakh mark in Covid-19 cases on Monday. AP’s previous high was 8,147 cases, on July 24.
The worst affected south Indian state - Tamil Nadu’s highest one day addition was 6,993 cases on July 27, while in Karnataka it was 5,536 on July 28.
While these two have also crossed the one lakh figure, in Telangana, which is accused of not conducting enough surveillance and tests, the cases are at 58,906.
The Chandrasekhar Rao government has tested less than four lakh samples till Tuesday. Telangana’s highest single day number stood at 1924 cases, on July 8.
Delhi’s highest addition was 3947 cases, on June 23.