Hyderabad, Nov 16 : Telangana reported only 502 Covid-19 cases on Monday as the number of daily tests dropped further due to festival and weekend. The laboratories in the state conducted only 17,296 tests during the last 24 hours. This is less than 50 per cent of the samples tested on weekdays. The fresh cases pushed the state's tally to 2,57,876. Three people succumbed to the virus during the same period, taking the death toll to 1,407. The fatality rate remains 0.54 per cent against the national average of 1.5 per cent. Officials said the percentage of deaths due to Covid-19 was 44.96 while the remaining 55.04 had comorbidities. Greater Hyderabad reported 141 new cases. Rangareddy recorded the second highest number of cases at 72 followed by Medchal Malkajgiri (33), Sangareddy (26), Bhadradri Kothagudem (23), Karimnagar (22) and Siddipet (21). According to the daily media bulletin released by the office of the director of public health and family welfare, 1,539 people recovered from the virus during the 24-hour period that ended 8 p.m. Sunday. The state's recovery rate improved further to 93.87 per cent as against the national average of 93.2 per cent. The total number of active cases stands at 14,385 of which 11,948 are in home or institutional isolation. The cumulative number of tests mounted to 48,91,729. Eighteen government-run laboratories, 50 private laboratories and 1,076 Rapid Antigen test centres are conducting the tests. Out of 17,296 samples tested during the last 24 hours, 16,310 samples were tested in the government-run laboratories and 986 in private. Samples tested per million population ratio rose further to 1,31,427. The daily testing target for the state is 5,600 per day as per the World Health Organisation (WHO) benchmark of 140 per million per day. Out of 2,57,374 total positive cases so far, 70 per cent (1,80,513) were asymptomatic while the remaining 30 per cent (77,363) were symptomatic. The data shows that 63.92 per cent of those tested positive so far were aged between 21-50 years. As many as 22.91 per cent were aged above 51 years. The positive cases include 13.18 per cent who were below 20 years. The bed status in the 61 government-run hospitals treating Covid patients shows that 7,551 out of 8,561 beds are vacant. In 220 private hospitals, 6,814 out of 8,241 beds are vacant. /IANS