However, the biggest concern is Varanasi which, with 793 new cases this week. The district’s caseload increased by 46% to 2,128. At present, it has 1,282 active cases.
As the state Covid data on Sunday confirmed the highest single-day jump of 3,260 cases, Lucknow emerged as the biggest hotspot district in the state with 2,298 new cases added in the past week.
In the week ending Sunday, the state reported its highest addition of cases — 17,741 ( 36 per cent of the total cases), and a record 280 deaths.
Lucknow accounted for 13 per cent of the weekly caseload and is the worst-affected district in the state in terms of total cases (6,307) and active cases (3,210). It added 2,298 cases and 27 deaths in the last seven days.
The state’s average weekly growth rate in Covid cases, however, remained unchanged, a tad over 5 per cent.
The testing rate in the state has been improving as its tests per million population has now increased to 8,152.
According to senior officials, the state tested a record 71,881 samples on Saturday — the highest in the country. With this, Uttar Pradesh, only behind Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra, has tested 18.34 lakh samples. The last week saw 3.63 lakh RT-PCR, TrueNat, and antigen tests.
The state has a total of 66,988 cases, of whom 41,641 patients have been discharged. This means that there are 23,921 active patients. Another milestone was reached with the recovery of 11,796 patients this week, pushing the recovery rate to 61.89 per cent. The jump in the recoveries post-July 21 could be attributed to the easing of the protocol for the discharge of patients.
As many as 1,426 patients, including 39 on Sunday, have died of coronavirus. The state’s fatality rate, however, showed a marginal decrease to 2.13 per cent. This could be attributed more to the rise in infections than the actual drop in the number of fatalities.
While Ghaziabad and Gautam Buddh Nagar were two of the three more affected districts until last week, both showed significant improvement this week with fewer positive cases and more recoveries. Kanpur Nagar, which reported several super spreaders and long chains of infection in May, is again emerging as a major hotspot with 1,791 active cases.
Recording a total of 172 deaths, including 52 this week, Kanpur Nagar had the highest death toll at a fatality rate of 4.62 percent, more than double the state average.
However, the biggest concern is Varanasi which, with 793 new cases this week. The district’s caseload increased by 46% to 2,128. At present, it has 1,282 active cases.
The rest of the 72 districts have their active cases in triple digits. Jhansi was another concern as it added 727 cases in the period — a 60 per cent increase. It also saw eight deaths, taking the toll to 57. In the last 24 hours, at least eight districts recorded over 100 cases.