On Sunday, Ghaziabad reported the highest number of new cases in the state (182), making it the district with the most number of active cases at 1,203, followed by Noida at 978. (Representatioanl)
Uttar Pradesh reported its highest single-day jump in coronavirus cases on Sunday with 1,155 new cases of infection in the last 24 hours, concluding a week of maximum cases – 5,560 cases in the last 7 days, which is 20% of its caseload (27,707).
The week also saw the highest jump in fatalities linked to Covid-19 —125 in the last seven days or 16% of the total deaths. With this, the state has reported 785 deaths — the fifth highest in the country.
The surge in the infection has been pushed by two neighbouring districts in the NCR – Ghaziabad and Gautam Buddh Nagar (Noida). The two added over 1,400 cases this week and together they have nearly 2,200 active cases, which is nearly one-fourth of the total active patients in the state.
On Sunday, Ghaziabad reported the highest number of new cases in the state (182), making it the district with the most number of active cases at 1,203, followed by Noida at 978.
The reason for the government’s wariness of the situation in the six districts of Meerut Division is from the fact that the region has been witnessing a record number of infection.
The six districts in the division — Gautam Buddh Nagar, Ghaziabad, Hapur, Bulandshahr, Meerut and Baghpat districts – has reported nearly 8,000 cases and currently has around 3,000 active cases. Together, they have the most number of fatalities in any division of the state – 220 or nearly 30% of the total deaths.
In the region, Meerut has the highest mortality rate (7.5%) followed by Bulandshahr (3.11%), Ghaziabad (2.8%), Hapur and Baghpat (2%), and lastly Gautam Buddh Nagar (1%), as per the state health department’s bulletin.
Agra still has the highest number of fatalities at 93. However, the the number of active cases is now 193.
Chief Minister Adityanath had directed officials on Thursday to pay special attention to the Meerut division to tackle the pandemic situation there. A special 10-day screening campaign has also begun.
Apart from the six districts in the Meerut division, Capital Lucknow and Varanasi are also the areas of growing concern.
Lucknow added 338 cases this week ending Sunday, taking the total number of active cases in the Capital to 550, the third-highest in the state after Ghaziabad and Noida. The Capital also recorded six more deaths in the last seven days, taking the total toll to 24.
While Kanpur Nagar, another hotspot district, reported 244 new cases and 13 more deaths, the situation in Varanasi has not been comforting. The district recorded a 46% jump in cases —204 new cases added in the last seven days. Varanasi also reported 11 deaths in the past one week, taking its case-moratlity rate to 4%.
The surge in the cases could be attributed to widescale testing as the government has ramped up the testing, reaching the target of over 25,000 daily tests on an average. This could be seen in the test-positivity rate, which has remained at around 3% despite the increase in the number of cases.
Additional Chief Secretary (Home) Awanish Kumar Awasthi on Sunday said that the target for testing will be increased to 30,000 samples in a day. “The per day average number of samples tested in the last three days has been around 27,000,” he said, adding that the highest number of tests were done at KGMU in Lucknow (3,579); followed by SGPGI in Lucknow (2,148) and GSVM in Kanpur (1,356).
Another comforting fact has been the doubling rate, which remained unchanged from the previous week at 19 days. The weekly average growth rate also increased marginally to 3.58%.