Uttar Pradesh achieved yet another milestone in the fight against COVID-19 by clocking 50 lakh tests, the first to be done by any state in the country.
Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath expressed satisfaction over the progress of testing, saying that no stone would be left unturned to break the coronavirus infection chain.
“Beside testing, surveillance, contact tracing and door-to-door surveys were also important and hence these should be boosted further,” Yogi said during his routine Team 11 meeting in Lucknow on Thursday.
On Wednesday, health teams conducted 1.38 lakh tests, taking the total count to over 50.80 lakh tests across the state. Officials said that it took less than four months to cross the 50 lakh-mark from one lakh test-mark on May 6.
At present, the state is carrying out around 1.30 lakh sample tests daily, the maximum being done by any state in the country too.
The state crossed 10 lakh tests on July 6, 15 lakh tests on July 28, 30 lakh tests on August 9 and 40 lakh tests on August 19.
At present, there are 117 testing facilities across Uttar Pradesh. The government has 35 RT-PCR machines, 75 TrueNat machines and seven CBNAAT machines at government-run hospitals and other places. Private hospitals too have 50 TrueNat machines.
The chief minister directed officials to ensure adequate arrangements in Covid hospitals and to keep all equipment, including ventilators, functional. He also stressed on 48-hour oxygen backup in Covid hospitals.
Yogi said that high flow nasal cannula (HFNC) method of treatment should be continued as it had shown good response in COVID-19 patients. He also directed officials to exercise special caution in Lucknow, Kanpur Nagar, Shahjahanpur and Gorakhpur and asked them to beef up health services.
Yogi also reiterated that weekend restrictions on closure of all markets and business establishments would continue in the state while there would be a total ban on organising any public function — political, social or religious — till September 30.
The chief minister assured the people that the government had made all arrangements for flood-affected people and asked officials to carry out relief in flood-hit areas on a war footing. He also directed officials to promptly pay compensation in case of damage to houses due to floods.
Yogi also asked officials to ensure availability of fertilisers for farmers and take action against black marketeers.
Meanwhile, Additional Chief Secretary (Home) Awanish Kumar Awasthi said on Thursday that there were 52,309 active cases across the state while the number of recovered patients was 1.52 lakh, including 4,331 people released from hospitals on Thursday.
Awasthi said there were 26,504 positive asymptomatic patients in home isolation, which was almost 50 per cent of total active patients. He said till date, a total of 87,120 patients were in home isolation of which 60,616 had recovered. Besides, he said, there were 2,348 patients in private hospitals, 245 in semi-paid hotels and the rest in government-run Covid hospitals.