COVID-19: 353 more deaths, 26,780 new cases in Uttar Pradesh; over 28,000 recover

LUCKNOW: The death toll from COVID-19 rose to 14,501 in Uttar Pradesh on Thursday with 353 more fatalities, while 26,780 new cases pushed the infection tally to 14,25,919, an official said.

Additional Chief Secretary Amit Mohan Prasad also said 28,902 people have recovered from the infection in the past 24 hours.

"There are currently 2,59,844 active cases in the state and the number of those who have recovered stands at 11,51,571," Prasad told reporters here.

Prasad said since April 30, when there were 3,10,783 active COVID-19 cases, the number of such cases have come down by over 51,000 as recoveries have increased.

Lucknow recorded a maximum of 1,865 fresh cases, followed by 1,303 new infections in Moradabad, 1,227 in Gautam Buddh Nagar, 1,167 in Meerut, 1,057 in Budaun, 991 in Gorakhpur, 953 in Ghaziabad, 782 in Kanpur, 796 in Varanasi, a health bulletin issued here said.

The state capital also accounted for a maximum of 65 new fatalities due to the virus.

Kanpur registered 49 coronavirus-related deaths, 21 such fatalities were recorded in Muzaffarnagar, 15 in Ghaziabad, 13 in Gautam Buddh Nagar, 12 each in Meerut and Jhansi, and 10 in Varanasi, it said.

Over 2.25 lakh tests, including 1.12 lakh RT-PCR ones, were conducted in Uttar Pradesh on Wednesday, Prasad said.

So far, over 4.22 crore samples have been tested for COVID-19 in the state, he said.

The UP government has started a campaign to conduct COVID-19 tests in 97,000 villages in the state.

"The campaign for testing and screening has been started in 97,000 villages," Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath said while addressing a review meeting.

The work for COVID-19 vaccination is going on properly and over 1.32 crore doses have been administered, the CM said.

Noting that the vaccine wastage was 0.39 per cent, the chief minister stressed that it should be brought down to zero per cent.