With nine districts being declared coronavirus-free, the active case load in India’s most populous state, Uttar Pradesh, now stands at 729. The infection load has been brought down by over 99.6 per cent from its peak capped at 3.10 lakh cases on April 30.

The districts which have been declared coronavirus-free include Aligarh, Amroha, Basti, Etah, Hathras, Kasganj, Kaushambi, Mahoba and Shravasti as they have reported zero active cases.

Making a rapid stride towards wiping out the deadly coronavirus, Uttar Pradesh has also been recording a consistent decline in the number of active cases. The active case load in the most populous state now stands at 729 which has been brought down by over 99.6 per cent from its peak at 3,10,783 cases on April 30. On the contrary, sparsely populated states like Kerala, Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu account for a heavy active case load of 1,45,876, 85,000 and 22,000 respectively,” Additional Chief Secretary (Information) Navneet Sehgal said on Friday.

“No new case was confirmed in double digits in any district. Not a single case of coronavirus infection was found in 55 districts, while in 20 districts, Covid-19 patients were found in single digits. In the last 24 hours only 42 fresh cases have been reported across the state while 91 patients have recovered from the infection,” he said.

The positivity rate stood at 0.01 per cent during this period and the recovery rate in the state was 98.6 per cent.

So far, more than 16.84 lakh residents of the State have recovered from Covid-19 and more than 6.52 crore Covid samples have been tested in the state. In the last 24 hours, 2,44,002 Covid samples were examined.

Sehgal said that during intensive contact tracing of 22 people found infected in Kanpur,  Covid testing of about 1,400 people who came in contact with their relatives was done and not a single positive case was confirmed.

So far, more than 4.67 crore Covid vaccines have been administered in Uttar Pradesh and more than 3.91 crore people have taken at least one dose of the vaccine.

In a bid to achieve self-sufficiency in production of oxygen which became scarce during the second wave of COVID-19 across the country, Uttar Pradesh has ramped up oxygen production as 245 out of the 551 sanctioned plants have become functional. As part of its mission to achieve self-sufficiency in the production of medical oxygen, the state government is currently working on war footing to get all plants functional by August 15.