With 1,497 new cases, curfew to be lifted in six more dists

With Uttar Pradesh recording an 88.1 per cent decline in the number of COVID-19 active cases since its peak on April 30, and the state reporting 1,497 new cases on Monday, six more districts that now have less than 600 active cases have been exempted from the corona curfew.

These districts are Sonbhadra with 436 active cases, Deoria (527), Baghpat (585), Prayagraj (554), Bijnor (390) and Moradabad (550). On Sunday, the government lifted corona curfew from 55 districts and with six districts added to the list on Monday, the tally is now 61 districts. The curfew still remains in 14 districts, including Lucknow.

A government spokesman said that a maximum of 105 fresh cases were reported from Meerut.

The casualty continues to remain a concern with 151 COVID-19 deaths in the last 24 hours out of which Kushinagar reported a record 48 deaths and Gorakhpur 16.

Lucknow reported 84 fresh cases and five deaths and has 2,280 active cases. The spokesman said that ramping up daily testing, timely detection of mutated strains of SARS-Cov-2 helped in the fight against the second wave. So far, the state has conducted the highest number of Covid tests in the country — 4,94,094,46, out of which nearly 2.50 crore tests were conducted in the rural areas. “Uttar Pradesh, as a part of its rigorous T3 testing regime, conducted over 3,12,677 Covid tests in the last 24 hours, out of which 1.42 lakh were done through polymerase chain reaction (PCR),” the spokesman said.

With the recovery of about 16,37,944 COVID-19 patients and consistent improvement in the condition of the state, the recovery rate has climbed up to a good 96.6 per cent. With only 1,497 positive samples detected out of 3.12 lakh Covid tests in the last 24 hours, the daily Test Positivity Rate (TPR) has dropped below 0.5 per cent in Uttar Pradesh. The TPR stands at 0.47 per cent, which is the lowest so far and has been maintained below 1 per cent for six days in a row. Consequently, as a result of decreasing transmission of the virus the number of containment zones in the state has also been reduced to only 16,730 now. In an encouraging sign, the number of patients in home isolation in the state has also come down to 20,782. This is the result of timely provision of free medical treatment, medicine kits and regular teleconsultation, the spokesman said.