Hyderabad, March 24 : The rising trend in Covid-19 cases in Telangana continued on Wednesday as the state reported 431 new infections during the last 24 hours. The highest single day count this year pushed the state's cumulative tally to 3,04,298. With the new cases outnumbering recoveries, the active cases mounted further. According to the daily media bulletin released by the director of public health and family welfare, two more persons succumbed to the virus, taking the death toll to 1,676. The fatality rate remained at 0.54 per cent against the national average of 1.4 per cent. The statistics show the cases were rising across the state. During the last 24 hours that ended 8 p.m. Tuesday, Greater Hyderabad reported 111 new cases, highest this year. Medchal Malkajgiri and Rangareddy districts bordering the state capital reported 37 and 31 cases respectively. Districts also saw a surge. Nirmal reported second highest number of cases at 32, followed by Mechal Malakjgiri (31), Rangareddy (27) and Nizamabad (18). Nirmal, Nizamabad, Karimnagar, Mancherial and other districts also saw a spike. The total number of active cases rose to 3,352, including 1,395 who are in home/institutional isolation. A total of 228 people recovered from the pandemic, taking the cumulative recoveries to 2,99,270. The recovery rate dropped further to 98.34 per cent but still above the national average of 95.5 per cent. Authorities have further ramped up testing. A total of 70,280 samples were tested during the last 24 hours. Of them, 63,533 were tested in government laboratories and remaining 6,747 in private. With this the number of tests conducted in the state so far climbed to 97,89,133. Samples tested per million population rose to 2,63,006. Admissions in both government and private hospitals treating Covid have gone up. Bed status in 62 government hospitals shows that 598 out of 8,419 beds were occupied. Similarly, in 215 private hospitals 1,359 out of 7,594 beds were occupied. /IANS