With a record single-day spike in Covid-19 cases, Telangana on Friday crossed 20,000 mark, overtaking both Rajasthan and West Bengal in terms of total number of infections so far.
A day after recording 1,213 cases, the state touched a new high of 1,892 positive cases, pushing its tally to 20,462.
Telangana has now climbed to the sixth position in the list of states with most cases.
The state also reported eight deaths, taking the death toll to 283.
Of the new cases recorded on Friday, hotspot Greater Hyderabad alone recorded 1,658 cases, which is also the steepest single-day jump.
According to the director of public health and family welfare, 5,965 samples were tested during the last 24 hours. This is the highest number of tests to be conducted in a single day. With this, the state has crossed one lakh mark in the cumulative number of tests done.
The state also saw 1,126 people recovering from the disease. Officials said the cumulative figure of recoveries mounted to 10,195.
A total of 9,984 people are undergoing treatment in hospitals or at home.
New cases were reported from 24 out of 33 districts in the state. While Greater Hyderabad continued to be the worst-affected, Rangareddy and Medchal district bordering the state capital registered 56 and 44 cases.
In a big spike, 41 cases were reported from Warangal rural district. Sangareddy, Nalgonda and Mahabubnagar districts also reported the cases in double figures.
Meanwhile, the Health Department has decided to hold the data of one of the private laboratories after it reported an extremely high sample positivity rate.
"The said lab has reported 2,672 positive cases against 3,726 total samples tested. The Positivity rate is 71.7 per cent which is a gross variation and discrepancy in the notified positivity rate of Covid-19 till date. The tested negatives are only 962 out of 3,726 samples. The issue needs to be evaluated by an expert committee and until then the data of the said lab has been kept under abeyance," said the bulletin.