In view of the rise in COVID-19 cases in Uttar Pradesh, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath has asked people to take precautions and avoid any public gathering during the festivals.

“Maintain vigil and take precautions in view of the coming festivals. Avoid any public gathering during the festivals and strictly follow the norms of social distancing and use of masks,” the chief minister said while presiding over a high-level Unlock review meeting at Lok Bhawan here on Friday.

The chief minister reiterated that mass awareness be spread about protection from coronavirus infection and observance of traffic rules.

Additional Chief Secretary (Home) Awanish Kumar Awasthi informed the chief minister that all district magistrates and district police chiefs had already been instructed to take up awareness campaign through public address system in their respective districts.

On the ongoing testing, the chief minister expressed satisfaction that the state government was carrying out more than 1.55 lakh Covid tests per day. He asked the officials to maintain the momentum as testing was the single most important component of COVID-19 control measures.

He said that treatment of the COVID-19 patients could be started immediately if the person was taken to Level-1 hospital. He said that contact tracing became important in this case hence it should be followed.

Saying that the availability of oxygen and essential medicines should be ensured in the Covid hospitals, the chief minister said that other hospitals of the state should also not face any shortage of oxygen.

He said that treatment pattern of the successfully treated COVID-19 patients should be studied well in Lucknow and Kanpur Nagar in order to contain the spread of coronavirus infection.

In this regard, Additional Chief Secretary, (Health) Amit Mohan Prasad, in consultation with doctors, shall study the treated patients in the district hospitals while  Additional Chief Secretary (Medical Education) Rajneesh Dube would do the same in medical colleges and medical institutes. By doing so, they will ensure increase in the recovery rate.

Yogi directed officials to prepare an action plan for more registrations under the goods and services tax (GST). He said efforts should be made to augment the GST revenue and prevent tax evasion.

He also directed officials to convene a meeting of Udyog Bandhu to solve the problems of investors and entrepreneurs.

The chief minister issued specific instructions to maintain vigil and to take precaution in view of the coming festivals. He asked people to avoid any public gathering during the festivals and strictly follow the norms of social distancing and use of masks.

He also asked officials to make sure that the financial assistance for disaster-hit person was distributed timely.

Additional Chief Secretary (Health) Amit Mohan Prasad said that there were 67,825 active cases in the state while 2,70,094 COVID-19 patients had recovered, including 6,806 who were discharged from hospitals in the last 24 hours. He said 1,55,897 sample were tested on Thursday.

Prasad said there were 35,124 asymptomatic COVID-19 patients in home isolation, 3,926 in private hospitals, 202 in semi paid hotels and the rest in government-run Covid hospitals.

He said 3.61 lakh Covid surveillance teams had covered 2.39 crore houses and checked 11.79 crore in 1,09,838 areas.