UP has till now reported 1.54 lakh coronavirus cases, which is close to 6% of the total cases in the country. (Representational)

The week ended on some positive news as the number of Covid-19 recovered patients crossed the 1 lakh mark in Uttar Pradesh on Sunday with as many as 4,201 people being declared recovered in the past 24 hours.

While this has pushed the recovery rate to 65%, it is still less than the national average of 72% and lower than some of the worst-hit Covid-affected states. Among them, Maharashtra (70%), Tamil Nadu (82.3%), Andhra Pradesh (69.4%), Delhi (90.2%) and even West Bengal (74%). UP has a better recovery rate than only Karnataka, where it is 62.3%.

Besides recovery, there were some positive takeaways this week : the weekly average growth rate dropped by nearly one percentage point — from 4.6% to 3.7% and the doubling rate increased from 15 and a half days to 19 days. This even as 31,809 new cases were reported from across the state – little higher than preceding week’s 29,688.

UP has till now reported 1.54 lakh coronavirus cases, which is close to 6% of the total cases in the country.

This week was the worst in the fatalities as 380 people died in the last seven days – the highest so far. The number of deaths on Sunday stood at 2,449 with 58 more people dying of the virus in the past 24 hours. The state’s case-fatality rate is, however, low at 1.6%.

Among the districts, Capital Lucknow remains the worst-affected by the pandemic with nearly 17,500 people having contracted the virus till now. The Capital added over 4,700 to its caseload in the past seven days — the highest among the 75 districts in the state, and the number of deaths (64) was twice from the preceding week’s jump. It has the highest active cases in the state at present with over 7,600 people either in Covid-designated hospitals or home isolation.

Districts like Prayagraj, Gorakhpur, and Bareilly also added more cases than what they had added in the preceding weeks. Azamgarh, Aligarh and Siddharthnagar are also areas of concern. While Gorakhpur added nearly 2,000 cases this week, Prayagraj over 1,400 and Bareilly nearly 1,300 cases. Azamgarh, Aligarh and Siddharthnagar added around 500 cases each this week.

While Kanpur Nagar continues to have the highest death count so far – 299 on Sunday – the district saw a drop in the number of new cases added this week (2,057) as compared to the preceding week (2,485). Similarly, Varanasi reported 1,091 cases this week, down from 1,501 last week. Both districts added fewer deaths —35 and 21 — to their respective tallies as compared to the preceding week, when 51 and 24 people had died in the respective districts.

Meanwhile, the government said that at least 24,686 are currently in home isolation and 12,891 areas have been marked hotspots in the state from where over 36,000 people have tested positive for Covid-19.

Also, Siddharthnagar Superintendent of Police Vijay Dhull has tested positive. He has been admitted to Lucknow’s SGPGI of Medical Sciences.