This story is from August 26, 2020

At least three contacts of every Covid patient being tested in UP

Covid-19: At least three contacts of every positive patient being tested in UP
With Taj Mahal still closed for toruists, women visitors click selfies from a distance outside the monument on Tuesday
LUCKNOW: At least three high risk contacts of every positive coronavirus patient in UP was being tested, according to an assessment of contact tracing exercise undertaken by a third party recruited by the government.
“The CM has been emphasizing on the quality of contact tracing in the state. As a result, we got a third party assessment done. In this, we reached out to 1,04,488 high risk contacts of 29,213 positive cases.
This means that at least 3.6 contacts were being traced for every positive case,” said additional chief secretary, health and family welfare, Amit Mohan Prasad. Prasad stated that of these total contacts traced, 97,422 (93.2%) had been tested. “Instructions have been given to test the remaining at the earliest,” Prasad claimed.
He also stated that of the people covered in the mammoth exercise, 4,813 were found to be symptomatic. “Our teams have already tested 98.7% of the symptomatic cases as well,” he said adding, “The statistics prove that the contact tracing activity was on track.”
Covid death toll crosses 3,000 mark: The Covid-19 tally for UP reached 1.97 lakh mark on Tuesday with addition of 5,124 cases in the past 24 hours. Health officials also noted that Covid-19 death tally crossed 3,000 mark with 73 entries in the past 24 hours.
As per a bulletin, Kanpur Nagar contributed maximum deaths during the day. Here 18 persons died to take the district total to 385. Kanpur was followed by Lucknow with 12 and Gorakhpur with seven deaths. In terms of new cases, Lucknow (500), Prayagraj
(320), Kanpur (286), Gorakhpur (202), Varanasi (153) and Ghaziabad (128) added 31% of the cases.
Health officials recorded a spike in cases in Ayodhya (146), Moradabad (140), Rampur (124), Deoria (124), Saharanpur (115), Aligarh (103), Lakhimpur Kheri (103) and Meerut (101). Together these districts added 18.6 % of the new cases.
Informing that 4,647 persons were discharged from hospital in the past 24 hours, officials stated that the total number of persons recovered had reached 1,44,753. Also, the number of active infections in UP was 49,575.
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About the Author
Shailvee Sharda

Journalist with the Times of India since August 2004, Shailvee Sharda writes on Health, Culture and Politics. Having covered the length and breadth of UP, she brings stories that define elements like human survival and its struggle, faiths, perceptions and thought processes that govern the decision making in everyday life, during big events such as an election, tangible and non-tangible cultural legacy and the cost and economics of well-being. She keenly follows stories that celebrate hope and life in general.

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