Uttar Pradesh: As active Covid cases near 50,000, govt urges people not to panic

In at least seven districts, including Lucknow, number of active cases is in four digits.

According to the state health department bulletin, at least 2,280 Covid-related deaths have been reported since April 1, of which 50 were reported in the past 24 hours.

The fresh deaths include 14 from Lucknow, four from Pyaragraj, three each from Kanpur Nagar, Varanasi, Azamgarh, Maharajganj and Mirzapur, two each from Pratapgarh, Ayodhya and Meerut, and one each from Ghaziabad, Bareilly, Aligarh, Shahjahanpur, Hardoi, Gonda, Bahraich, Sitapur, Lakhimpur Kheri, Lalitpur and Banda.

On Thursday, Additional Chief Secretary (Health & Medicine) Amit Mohan Prasad urged people not to panic or hide information if they test Covid positive or have come in contact with a patient as a large number of people do not even require hospital admission.

Prasad said many people are recovering in home isolation and till date 43,101 persons have been allowed home isolation. Of these, at least 20,398 have recovered and 22,408 are still in home isolation with active infection.

Prasad pointed out that the state government was ensuring that the pandemic does not affect the non-Covid care and thus OPD sections in hospitals were started a long time ago. He added that the effect of the same could be seen by the fresh data suggesting not much difference in numbers of both major and minor surgeries this year compared to the previous year.

“Between June 1 and August 12 last year, there were 42,528 major surgeries in government hospitals and this year even after the pandemic there were 34,139 major surgeries in the same period this year under non-Covid facilities. There were 71,560 minor surgeries last year in the same time and compared to that there have been 53,623 minor surgeries this year. This shows that we are focusing on both the Covid and non-Covid facilities along with continuous child vaccination and more than 5,500 child deliveries per day,” said Prasad.
On Covid testing in the state, he said at least 87,214 samples were tested on Wednesday and with some backlog cleared, the state has tested 35,01,127 samples since March this year.

Meanwhile, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath stressed on the need to increase coronavirus testing in containment zones. In a meeting with senior officials, Adityanath said efforts should be made to ensure that all those living in containment zones are tested to achieve the aim of setting up such zones.
The chief minister directed the officials to deploy more doctors at Covid hospitals besides increasing the bed capacity in medical facilities in Kanpur Nagar, Lucknow and Varanasi.