Corona-infected patients breach 100-mark as five test positive in Bareilly

With five more persons testing positive for coronavirus in Bareilly on Tuesday, the total count of COVID-19 cases in Uttar Pradesh has crossed the 100 mark, said officials.

In all, 101 cases have been reported from 15 districts of the state, Principal secretary medical and health Amit Mohan Prasad told reporters here.

"Five new cases were found positive in Bareilly. The samples of 6 members of a family of a man, working in Noida and found corona-positive earlier, were sent for testing. Five of them, including his mother, father, brother, sister and wife were found positive," Bareilly Chief medical officer, Dr Vineet Shukla said on Tuesday.

 

After the report, declaring five Bareilly residents corona-positive, was received from the KGMU on Tuesday morning, the Subhash Nagar area, where the family lives, has been sealed off with a 5-km area around their house turned into a buffer zone, the CMO said.

The Health Department has started screening all people residing in one kilometre area around their house, he added.

The number of positive cases in the state is now 101, a health official said here.

As per the district-wise break-up of total corona-positive cases in the state, 38 are from Gautam Buddh Nagar, 19 from Meerut, 11 from Agra, nine from Lucknow, seven from Ghaziabad, six from Bareilly, two each from Pilibhit and Varanasi and one each from Lakhimpur-Khiri, Kanpur Nagar, Moradabad, Shamli, Jaunpur, Baghpat, and Bulandshahr, the statement said.

Prasad said, "One cluster is of Gautam Buddh Nagar, where cases were reported from a fire extinguisher factory, the other cluster is in Meerut. More than 50 per cent cases have been reported from these two clusters. In all, there are 101 cases, reported from 15 districts of the state."

"At this time, we are entering a crucial phase, and we are appealing to the people of UP that the hand-washing norms and social distancing protocol must be strictly adhered to, even if it is causing some problems during lockdown," he cautioned.

"If alertness and precaution is adhered to for the next 14 days, the number of cases in the state will remain low," he said.

The chief minister, meanwhile on Tuesday, directed for deployment of a Health Department officer in each district of the state to supervise the ongoing anti-corona fight by the administration for the next 15-30 days.

In this regard, a senior official has been deployed at all three hotspots in the state -- one each in Gautam Buddh Nagar, Ghaziabad and Meerut, he said, adding the officer would camp at all these three hotspots for the next 30 days and guide the local administration and their anti-corona operations.

Wherever cases have not been reported, the district magistrates and chief medical officers have been told to put their areas under strict surveillance, and if any suspected corona carrier is found, he or she should be put in quarantine facility and be tested for the infection, the principal secretary (Medical and Health) said.

"Testing is currently being done at eight laboratories in the state. We have held talks with the Indian Council of Medical Research and urged them to allow three more laboratories to operate as authenticated testing centres," Prasad said.