Amaravati(AP), Aug 20 (PTI) Belying the expectations of the health authorities, the COVID-19 graph of Andhra Pradesh continued its explosive spree as 9,393 more cases were added to push the overall tally further up to 3.25 lakh on Thursday.

After Maharashtra, AP is the only state reporting a large number of Covid-19 cases daily, sometimes close to 10,000, over the past few days.

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The state health officials were initially hopeful that the infection positivity rate would be brought down below five per cent by the end of July but later reset it to mid-August.

"The peak is continuing and it may take a couple of more weeks for the curve to reverse," a top official of the health department noted.

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Also, the coronavirus fatalities continued their upward spiral, crossing the 3,000 mark with the addition of 95 fresh deaths in the last 24 hours.

The latest bulletin said 8,846 patients recovered and were discharged from hospitals.

The state now has 87,177 active cases after a total of 2.35 lakh coronavirus patients recovered and 3,001 succumbed so far.

The infection positivity rate maintained its ascent and went further up to 10.58 per cent.

The worst performing East Godavari continued to dominate the Covid-19 chart, reporting 1,357 fresh cases, followed by its neighbor West that saw 995 new additions to its tally.

Visakhapatnam (985), Anantapuramu (973), Chittoor (836), Kurnool (805) and Srikakulam (762) districts reported more cases in the past 24 hours, according to the bulletin.

Chittoor saw a high of 16 new casualties, Prakasam 11, SPS Nellore nine, Anantapuramu, East Godavari and West Godavari eight each and Kadapa seven.

Guntur, the state topper in Covid-19 deaths with 319, added six more in the last 24 hours, the same as Kurnool and Visakhapatnam, while Srikakulam reported five, Vizianagaram three and Krishna two.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)