With the COVID-19 fatality rate coming down, the Uttar Pradesh government has intensified contact tracing of people close to coronavirus positive people so that the spread of the infection can be arrested.
Principal Secretary (Health) Alok Kumar told media persons in Lucknow on Tuesday that the COVID-19 fatality rate had gradually come down.
“It was the highest (41.1 percent) in March and has substantially come down in successive months. In October, it was 1.3 percent and till date, it has gone down to 1.2 percent,” he said.
Kumar said that contact tracing of relatives and friends of coronavirus positive patients had also increased .
“Contact tracing was 5.4 people per positive case in September and it has now increased to 11.2 people per positive case in November,” he said.
The principal secretary said that the state recorded 1,726 new COVID-19 cases in the last 24 hours taking the tally of confirmed cases to 4.87 lakh.
He said till date, 4.57 lakh COVID-19 patients had recovered and 22,538 were either hospitalised or in home isolation.
On Tuesday, 2,210 COVID-19 patients were cured in hospitals or home isolation.
A total of 7,089 people lost their lives to the lethal virus with 13 fresh fatalities being reported in the last 24 hours.
On Monday, 1.48 lakh samples were tested taking the tally of total Covid tests in the state to 1.53 crore.
Kumar said the Health department was carrying out surveillance across the state from October 29 and workers of sweet shops, parlours, mehndi artists, restaurants workers, auto drivers and others were being randomly tested for the coronavirus infection.
He said this drive would continue till November 12 to prevent the spread of novel coronavirus during the Diwali festival.