Uttar Pradesh also reported eight more coronavirus deaths, taking the toll to 283, while 412 fresh cases pushed the state's active cases count to 10,947, officials said.

There are currently 4,320 active COVID-19 cases in the state, while 6,344 patients have recovered and discharged from various hospitals, Principal Secretary Health Amit Mohan Prasad said.

"Of the eight deaths, two were reported from Agra, and one each from Kanpur Nagar, Siddhartnagar, Ayodhya, Prayagraj, Gorakhpur and Auraiya," a health department bulletin said.

Agra has reported 52 deaths, Meerut 38, Firozabad 18, Aligarh and Kanpur and Nagar 16 each and Moradabad 11, among others, so far it said.

Of the 412 fresh COVID-19 cases, 59 were reported in Gautam Budh Nagar, 41 in Ghaziabad, 28 in Bulandshahr, 25 in Kanpur Nagar, 21 in Meerut, 19 in Hapur, 16 each in Lucknow and Agra, 14 in Rae Bareli, 13 in Aligarh 11 each in Jalaun and Gorakhpur, as per the bulletin.

Prasad said 13,236 tests were done on Sunday, which is so far the highest in a day.

The target has been fixed to increase the testing capacity to 15,000 per day, he added.
He also mentioned that there was an urgent need for people, especially in urban areas, to strictly follow the coronavirus protocol to protect themselves from the infection as the lockdown restrictions are being eased.

The cases being presently reported are mostly from western districts of the state like those of Meerut division and, therefore, the need of the hour is that people living in cities should be more careful, Prasad said.

The principal secretary told to assess the work of the monitoring committees for the management of COVID-19, four villages each were selected from 18 districts where a large number of migrant workers had returned back.

"We collected 25 samples of the natives in each selected village and the samples were taken from 72 villages for testing. We also wanted to see how seriously the migrant workers who have returned from other states and the natives already living there had followed the COVID-19 protocol. "We are happy to inform you that the report of all the samples was negative. This means that the efforts of the monitoring committees and the appeals made by the administration have been successful in making an impact," he said.

Prasad said that so far, 13,89,136 migrant workers have been tracked by ASHA workers by visiting their homes.

Symptoms were found in 1,299 people and further action is being taken after taking their samples, he added.

Source : PTI