Lucknow: With 15,353 new Covid-19 cases, Uttar Pradesh on Sunday reported the highest single-day spike since the outbreak of the pandemic last year. With this, the number of active cases on Sunday stood at 71,241 – the highest so far. In the previous peak, recorded on September 17 last year, there were 68,235 active cases. The speed by which the infection has spread in the second wave can be gauged from the data that by the end of March, Uttar Pradesh had 9,848 active cases, and now over 71,000 cases — a jump of over 600% in less than two weeks.

As per the UP Health Department’s bulletin, 67 Covid patients died in the last 24 hours, with 31 in Lucknow, which is the worst hit by the pandemic. The total death count has now reached 9,152, of which at least 332 were reported in the last 10 days. Sensing the urgency, the state government on Sunday ordered fresh restrictions to break the chain of infection. After chairing a Covid-19 review meeting, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath ordered the closure of all schools, government as well as private till April 30. All private coaching centres will also be shut down. However, exams that were pre-scheduled will take place. Earlier, the state government had decided to close schools up to class VIII till April 11.

He also directed the imposition of night curfew in districts reporting over 100 new cases in a day or those having 500 active cases. Earlier, night curfew was imposed in Kanpur, Gorakhpur, Gautam Buddh Nagar, Allahabad, Meerut, Ghaziabad, Bareilly, Muzaffarnagar districts and the Lucknow civic body area.

According to a government statement, the CM also ordered that not more than 100 people be allowed to assemble at an open space for an event – social, religious, sports, entertainment, educational or cultural — while the number has been put at 50 for closed spaces. In both cases, people will have to follow basic Covid protocols like the use of face masks, social distancing, thermal scanning and regular sanitisation.

“The system of containment zone should be strictly enforced. Adequate arrangements should be made for all necessary logistics including PPE kits, pulse oximeters, infrared thermometers, sanitizers, antigen kits in all districts. There should not be any complaint of lack of logistics from any district. There is adequate availability of HFNC and ventilator in the state,” the government said.

Adityanath emphasized on maintaining adequate availability of oxygen, health personnel, medicines, medical equipment and backups in Covid-designated hospitals. He once again ordered officials to increase the number of beds of Level-2 and Level-3 hospitals, and directed the officials to completely dedicate Balrampur Hospital, Era Medical College, TS Mishra Medical College and Integral Medical College in Lucknow for the treatment of Covid patients. There should be a minimum of 700 beds available in each Covid hospital, he added.

Stressing the need to focus on the “test, trace and treat” approach, the CM said the daily count of RT-PCR tests should be taken to one lakh. Tracing of at least 30-35 persons who have come in contact with an infected person should be done, the directives said.

While Lucknow remains the worst affected district since last September, the infection seems to be rapidly spreading across others districts. Four districts have reported more than 500 cases, 10 other districts more than 200 cases and at least 15 others districts over 100 cases in the last 24 hours. Lucknow has reported 4,444 new cases, followed by 1,740 in Varanasi, 1,565 in Prayagraj, 881 in Kanpur Nagar, 390 in Gorakhpur, 291 in Jhansi, 255 in Meerut, 222 in Ballia, 221 each in Bareilly and Banda, 219 in Gautam Buddha Nagar, 214 in Chandauli and 210 each in Rae Bareli and Mirzapur.

Districts with fresh cases between 100 and 200 are Ghaziabad, Moradabad, Agra, Saharanpur, Muzaffarnagar, Barabanki, Mathura, Jaunpur, Ghazipur, Gonda, Sonbhadra, Sultanpur, Sitapur, Bahraich and Lalitpur.

In terms of active cases, eight districts have more than 1,000 active cases, including as much as 20,195 in Lucknow, and 19 other districts have more than 500 active cases. The CM also reviewed of Covid-19 vaccination and urged people to take part in the four-day “Teeka Utsav” that aims to inoculate a maximum number of people. The vaccination is being done at 6,000 centres in the state and more than 85 lakh people have got their first dose, so far.

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