Voicing concern over the spike in coronavirus cases in big cities like Lucknow, Varanasi and Prayagraj, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath said that special efforts were required to control the viral infection and asked senior officials to review health services in the cities.
“Special efforts are required to control COVID-19 infection in Lucknow, Kanpur Nagar, Gorakhpur, Varanasi and Prayagraj. Senior officials should go there and monitor ground realities,” Yogi said at the Team 11 meeting in Lucknow on Friday.
The chief minister directed the additional chief secretary (medical education) to visit Kanpur Nagar to make on-the-spot inspection of health services on September 5. Similarly, the additional chief secretary (health) and additional chief secretary (panchayati raj and rural development) were asked to review the situation in Lucknow.
“The top officials should be accompanied by the vice chancellor of KGMU and director of SGPGI. The situation in Lucknow and Kanpur Nagar has to be controlled,” he said
Yogi also directed that the additional chief secretary (medical education) and a team would further move to Prayagraj for inspection on September 6. He asked the officers to carry out regular check-up of jail inmates and said that new inmates be kept in temporary jails first.
The chief minister directed officials to conduct surveillance, door-to-door survey and medical testing effectively to control COVID-19. He also asked them to make extra efforts to augment ICU bed capacity.
“It is necessary to take patients to Covid hospital at the earliest to save lives,” he said.
With the second highest number of 6,193 fresh COVID-19 cases on Friday, the count of confirmed cases in UP mounted to 2,53,175, thus crossing the 2.5 lakh-mark.
The death toll also reached 3,762 with 71 fresh casualties in the last 24 hours.
The recovery rate of COVID-19 patients in the state has gone up to 75.37 per cent, while fatality rate has come down to 1.48 per cent, which is lower than the national average.
Additional Chief Secretary (Health) Amit Mohan Prasad said in Lucknow that there were 58,595 active cases in UP, while 5,006 COVID-19 patients had recovered in the last 24 hours, taking the number of cured patients to 1,90,818 in the state.
“On Thursday, 1.46 lakh samples were tested. There were 30,084 asymptomatic patients in home isolation. Till now 1.15 lakh positive patients went for home isolation in out of which 85,110 have recovered,” he said.
Giving age-wise figures of positive patients in the state, the additional chief secretary said that 14.12 per cent were in 0 to 20 years age group, the highest 48.70 per cent were in 21 to 40 years age group, 28.50 per cent in 41 to 60 years age group and 8.68 per cent in the age group of above 60 years.
Prasad also said that till date Covid surveillance was done in 87,569 areas by over 3.15 lakh teams, covering 2.12 crore houses having 10.64 crore people.