Hyderabad, Oct 28 : Telangana on Wednesday reported 1,481 new COVID cases, taking the state's tally to 2,34,152. After reporting daily count of less than 1,000 for three days due to fewer tests, the cases surged to over 1,400 as the authorities conducted 40,081 tests. The authorities had drastically reduced the number of daily tests due to week-end and Dussehra holidays and this had led to a big drop in number of cases. Four deaths during the last 24 hours pushed the death toll to 1,319. The fatality stands at 0.56 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 co-morbidities. Greater Hyderabad reported 279 new cases. Medchal Malkajgiri recorded the second highest number of cases at 138 followed by Rangareddy (111), Khammam (82), Nalgonda (82), Bhadradri Kothagudem (79), Karimnagar (79) and Suryapet (47). According to the daily media bulletin released by the office of the director of public health and family welfare, 1,451 people recovered from the virus during the 24-hour period that ended 8 p.m. Tuesday. The state's recovery rate improved to 91.78 per cent as against the national average of 90.7 per cent. The total number of active cases stands at 17,916 of which 14,883 are in home or institutional isolation. During the last 24 hours, 40,081 samples were tested in 18 government-run laboratories, 46 private laboratories and 1076 Rapid Antigen test centres. According to officials, 37,237 samples were tested in government-run laboratories and 2,844 in private. Of the total samples 17,635 were primary and 4,809 were secondary. The cumulative number of tests mounted to 41,55,597. Samples tested per million population ratio rose further to 1,11,649. 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 2,34,152 total positive cases so far, 70 per cent (1,63,906) were asymptomatic while the remaining 30 per cent (70,246) were symptomatic. /IANS