Hyderabad, April 15 : For the second consecutive day, Covid-19 claimed eight lives across Telangana while the daily count of new cases jumped to 3,307, the highest so far in the state. The previous highest one-day spike was on April 11, when 3,187 cases were recorded. The cumulative Covid tally moved up to 3,38,045. Eight fatalities were reported in the 24-hour period (between 8 p.m. on Tuesday and 8 p.m. on Wednesday). This is the highest fatality in a day during the second wave. The fresh fatalities pushed the death toll to 1,788. The case fatality rate remained at 0.52 per cent against the national average of 1.2 per cent. The spike continued across the state. Greater Hyderabad remained the worst hit with 446 new cases while adjoining districts of Medchal Malkajgiri and Rangareddy recorded 314 and 277 cases respectively. Nizamabad district bordering Maharashtra remained one of the worst affected districts with 279 new infections. Jagtiyal reported 155 cases followed by 153 in Sangareddy, 148 in Nirmal, 128 in Kamareddy, 102 in Nalgonda and 101 in Khammam. Concerned over the massive surge, director of public health, Dr G. Srinivas Rao, on Wednesday warned that if the situation continued like this, Telangana will soon become like Maharashtra. He asked people to be careful and follow all Covid guidelines. "The next four to six weeks are extremely crucial for Telangana and the situation will spiral out of control if we are not careful," he said. "The fact that the state is not imposing a lockdown does not mean we are not in a critical situation. The lockdown is not being imposed because it will affect livelihoods and the economy of the state," Rao said. According to a media bulletin issued by the health department on Thursday, the number of active cases in the state jumped to 27,861 including 18,685 who are in home or institutional isolation. The recovery rate dipped further to 91.22 per cent, still above the national average for 88.3 per cent. During the last 24 hours, the health authorities in the state conducted 1,06,627 tests, taking the cumulative number of tests to over 1.13 crore. Samples tested per million population rose to 3,05,212. The admissions in 72 government and 249 private hospitals treating Covid rose to 9,176. /IANS