Directing officials to maintain caution towards COVID-19, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath said that a little carelessness could prove costly and stressed on effective measures and medical care to contain the infection.
Chairing an Unlock review meeting at his official residence in Lucknow on Thursday, Yogi said that complete caution be maintained keeping in view the Chhath festival and instructed officials to ensure effective cleaning of ghats during the festival. He said that Covid testing had an important role in breaking the infection chain and it should also be carried out with full capacity.
Asking officials to ensure effective contact tracing, the CM said that 65,000 to 70,000 RT-PCR tests and 90,000 to 1.10 lakh rapid antigen tests should be carried out on a daily basis.
Yogi also said that the Integrated Command and Control Centre (ICCC) should work actively and district magistrates and chief medical officers should regularly hold review meetings at Covid hospitals in the morning and at the ICCC in the evening.
The chief minister directed officials to maintain treatment facilities at all Covid hospitals and medical colleges. He said an adequate number of beds must be ensured in these hospitals. He asked the officials to ensure regular review of the availability of resources in the hospitals.
On Thursday, the number of new novel coronavirus positive cases in the state went up to 2,586, breaching the 2,500-mark after a couple of weeks.
Additional Chief Secretary (Health) Amit Mohan Prasad said on Thursday that the positivity rate in people above 60 years of age had gone up to 10.02 percent and this was a cause of concern for the government. He said that among the casualties, over 45 percent were above 60 years.
“The UP government appeals to the people to take care of older people of the families,” he said.
Meanwhile, on Thursday, UP reported 2,586 fresh COVID-19 cases, taking the tally to 5,19,148. The recovery rate was 94.18 percent with 4,88,911 COVID-19 patients recovering, including 1,690 during the past 24 hours.
There are 22,757 active COVID-19 cases in the state out of which 10,381 are in home isolation, 2,147 in private hospitals and the rest in government-run Covid hospitals.
The COVID-19 death toll reached 7,480 with 39 deaths during the past 24 hours.