Fresh COVID-19 cases in Uttar Pradesh continued to decline on Sunday with 468 persons testing positive for novel coronavirus infection across the state during the last 24 hours and 1,221 patients recovering during this period.

There are now 8,986 COVID-19 patients in the state with the recovery rate touching 98.2 per cent and positivity rate being just 0.1 per cent.

The daily fresh COVID-19 cases were under 500 on March 21 last and after two and a half months this figure has again come down to under 500.

Additional Chief Secretary (Information) Navneet Sehgal said here on Sunday that the overall positivity rate in the state was 3.1 per cent. He said on Saturday, 2,89 943 samples were tested for COVID-19 infection and with this the number of total tests in the state went up to 5,33,45,463.

On the Covid front, the state has vaccinated 2,29,35,815 people so far. On Saturday, 4,58,810 people were vaccinated in the state, including 2,35,683 in the 18 + age category.

“By implementing measures such as intensive 'Trace, Test & Treat' and prevention through vaccination and partial Covid curfews to decimate the pandemic, the government has adopted a multipronged approach to minimise the devastating impact of the coronavirus as a result of which the positivity rate has slumped to 0.1 per cent,” Sehgal said.

Uttar Pradesh is the first state to have crossed the milestone of conducting five crore Covid tests out of which nearly 2.60 crore samples were from the rural areas.

“Twenty-five oxygen plants were already functional in the state before the government took the step of setting up more on a war-footing to ensure the availability of sufficient medical oxygen in view of any possible future requirement,” Sehgal said and added that as many as 87 of the 427 oxygen plants had already been established and were functional while work on the rest was going on in Uttar Pradesh.