Covid cases surge in UP

Lucknow, Aug 4 (IANS) Uttar Pradesh has recorded a steep rise in new Covid cases with 786 people testing positive till Wednesday evening, a rise of 34 per cent since Tuesday when there were 583 new cases.

Lucknow reported 114 new cases after a gap of a month, while one death was reported from Jhansi.

Amit Mohan Prasad, additional chief secretary (ACS), medical and health, said: "The state tested 81,117 covid samples in the past 24 hours and till now 11,98,23,581 samples have been tested."

It was on February 19 that state had reported 777 Covid cases after which the number of new daily cases remained below 700.

Lucknow had last reported 136 cases on July 1 after which the number remained below 100.

In the past 24 hours, 486 patients recovered and till now 20,77,156 have recovered.

"The recovery rate in the state is 98.70 per cent," said Dr Abhishek Shukla, secretary general, Association of International Doctors.

The state has reported a total 21,04,312 covid cases and 23,571 deaths till now.

Meanwhile, it has 3,585 active Covid cases with the highest 602 in Gautam Buddha Nagar, followed by Lucknow (508), Ghaziabad (236)nand Varanasi (183).

Two districts Hamirpur and Mahoba have no active Covid cases.

Among new cases, Gautam Buddha Nagar reported 165, Ghaziabad 49, Varanasi 29, Meerut 65, Prayagraj 26, Badaun 23, Saharanpur 20, Gorakhpur 16.

The 24-hour test positivity rate was 0.96 per cent.