The number of novel coronavirus-affected persons in Uttarakhand climbed to 42 on Saturday with State health department reporting two new cases of the disease. Both these cases are from Roorkee town of Haridwar district. It is learnt that one among these two is a labourer, a resident of Bihar, and other is a woman, who is wife of a Tablighi Jamaat follower. With these cases, Hardiwar district is fast emerging as a hot spot for the disease.

The health department has so far reported seven cases of the disease from this district. Dehradun with 20 cases so far is at top of the table of number of patients while with nine patients Nainital is at second spot.

 Udham Singh Nagar has four patients while Almora and Pauri have one patient each of the disease. The additional secretary, medical health and family welfare department, Yugal Kishore Pant informed that reports of 276 suspected patients were received by the department on Saturday and out of them two were found positive for the disease. He said that reports of 406 samples are still awaited.

The authorities have so far taken swab samples of 3158 suspected patients for COVID-19 test.

On Saturday, samples of 330 suspected patients were taken and sent to the lab for test. The health department collected 131 samples from Dehradun district while 86 samples were taken from Haridwar district on the day. The authorities collected 76 and 28 samples from Udham Singh Nagar and Nainital districts respectively.

A total of 2041 people are under institutional quarantine while 604 suspected patients in hospital isolation in the state.  The authorities have kept 63783 people under home quarantine in different parts of the state.