31 people test positive for COVID-19 in Haryana, cases rise to 548

The number of novel coronavirus cases rose to 548 in Haryana on Tuesday, with 31 people testing positive for the disease in the state, officials said.

Of the 31 new cases, 11 were reported from Gurgaon district, one of the worst-affected by the pandemic in Haryana.

Besides Gurgaon, eight cases were reported from Jhajjar, five from Sonipat, three from Karnal, two from Yamunanagar and one each from Faridabad and Panipat, according to the state health department's daily bulletin.

During the past three days, Haryana has reported 172 fresh cases, including 75 of these on Monday.

The total COVID-19 active cases are 286 while those discharged are 256. The state has reported six COVID-19-related deaths.

As Haryana continues to scale up its testing, until Tuesday the number of samples sent were 40,928 out of which 36,806 have tested negative while report of 3,574 samples are still awaited.

Test per million being conducted is 1,614 in the state.

With several cases being reported during the past few days, particularly in the districts falling in national capital region, including Jhajjar and Gurgaon, Haryana's recovery rate, which had been one of the best in the country, dropped from 72 per cent last week, to 46.72 cent on Tuesday.

Meanwhile, the worst-affected districts of the state that have the highest number of positive cases are Gurgaon (84), Sonipat (78), Faridabad (76), Jhajjar (64), Nuh (59), Ambala (37) and Palwal (36).

Sonipat and Jhajjar have the highest number of active case 72 and 64 respectively.

Among the total coronavirus cases are 24 foreign nationals who tested positive. Fourteen of them were Italian tourists of whom 13 were discharged while one elderly woman in the group passed away last month even though she had recovered from the coronavirus infection.

The other 10 foreign nationals found positive are from Sri Lanka, Nepal, Thailand, South Africa and Indonesia while 64 are from other states, as per the bulletin.