Claiming that Uttar Pradesh was heading in the right direction in its fight against coronavirus, health officials said that the infection positivity rate was less than 5 per cent as per expectations of the Union Health Ministry.

“Positivity rate of coronavirus is below 5 per cent in the state. From August 1 to 11, the rate was 4.8 per cent. Districts like Lucknow, Kanpur, Gorakhpur, Deoria and Varanasi witnessed higher positivity rate while Hathras, Baghpat, Mahoba and some others recorded low rate,” Additional Chief Secretary (Health) Amit Mohan Prasad told news persons in Lucknow on Wednesday.

Prasad said that there were 49,347 active cases in UP while the number of recovered patients was 84,661, including 4072 ,patients released from hospitals on Wednesday.

“The state government is now focusing on four planks for containing coronavirus — surveillance, contact tracing, testing and treatment,” he said.

Prasad said that on Tuesday, 97,911 tests were carried out which took the Covid tests in UP to 34.12 lakh.

“Of the tests done, 3,083 were of 5-sample pools and 164 of 10-sample pools. In the 5-sample pools, 522 were found positive and in the 10-sample pools, 23 were found positive,” he said. The additional chief secretary said that there were 21,758 positive asymptomatic patients in home isolation, 1,627 in private hospitals, 196 in semi-paid hotels and rest in government-run Covid hospitals.

He said that 39,678 asymptomatic patients were in home isolation out of which 17,920 had recovered till date.