Varanasi Additional CMO among 55 dead: As Covid cases rise, govt says August positivity close to 5%

He, however, did not clarify what were the test-positivity rates in the five districts.

Notably, all these five districts have reported a surge in the Covid cases in the fortnight. Lucknow among them has the highest number of total as well as active cases – 14,696 and 6,895, respectively as on Wednesday. Kanpur Nagar is second with 9,067 total cases and 4,515 active cases. As on Wednesday, the number of active cases in Gorakhpur was 1,845, Deoria 845, and Maharajganj 626.

With the total Covid-19 count rising to 1,36,238 in the past 24 hours and over 34 lakh samples tested so far, the overall test-positivity rate is around 3.5%.

Hathras, Baghpat, Mahoba, Kasganj and Bulandshahr has the least test-positivity rate, Prasad added.

Meanwhile, the state recorded 55 Covid-related deaths in the past 24 hours. Among them was Additional Chief Medical Officer (ACMO) of Varanasi Dr Jung Bahadur. “The 62-year-old official was a patient of hypertension. He was admitted to Banaras Hindu University after he complained of high fever and breathlessness. He died on Wednesday following a cardiac arrest,” CMO Varanasi Dr BB Singh said.

Lucknow reported highest deaths in the past 24 hours (7), followed by Kanpur Nagar (6), Gorakhpur (5), Bareilly (4), three each from Varanasi, Hardoi and Auraiya, two from Maharajganj and one each from Ghaziabad, Prayagraj, Jhansi, Jaunpur, Moradabad, Agra, Barabanki, Ayodhya, Shahjahanpur, Basti, Pilibhit, Chandauli, Mathura, Muzaffarnagar, Bijnor, Mirzapur, Pratapgarh, Fatehpur, Bhadohi, Kanpur Dehat, Balrampur and Shravasti. With this, the state’s fatality count has reached 2,230 with a mortality rate of 1.63%.

At least, 11 districts recorded over 100 new cases in the past 24 hours with Lucknow again on the top with 475 cases, followed by 306 in Basti, 232 in Kanpur Nagar, 227 in Prayagraj and 224 in Gorakhpur.