In a big success towards eradicating the deadly coronavirus, Uttar Pradesh witnessed the steepest decline in the number of fresh cases on Monday with only seven new infections being reported, making it the lowest single-day tally.
In sharp contrast to other states like Kerala, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu, UP, the most populous state of the country, has significantly lesser cases and has been largely successful in harnessing the raging disease. When other states are witnessing a surge of fresh COVID-19 cases (daily cases ranging from 20,000-2,000), Uttar Pradesh has restricted the daily-case count to below 50 for 47 days in a row.
The downward trend of the viral infection has continued for an eleventh consecutive week. Consequently, Uttar Pradesh, pushing the Covid graph southwards, has maintained the daily Covid test positivity rate (TPR) — the number of positive cases against the total tests done — at 0.01 per cent, the lowest in the country. This rate was at its highest at 16.84 per cent on April 24 and now remains even lower than the lowest post-first COVID-19 wave.
Due to aggressive tracing and testing, Uttar Pradesh’s positivity rate — which shows the level of infections among people — has been registering a steady decline for several days, indicating that the dangerous COVID-19 wave is receding from the state, in contrast to states like Kerala which have failed to register any reduction and have a positivity rate of 15 per cent.
The active caseload in UP now stands at 176, which has been brought down by a remarkable over 99 per cent from its peak capped at 3,10,783 cases on April 30. With the recovery of more than 16.86 lakh people from COVID-19 infection, the state’s recovery rate has jumped to 98.7 per cent. With highest testing, highest recovery rate and lowest test positivity rate, the state has emerged as a clear winner in the fight against the dreaded viral infection.
In another major relief, no cases of fresh infections were reported from 71 districts of the state. Districts like Aligarh, Amethi, Amroha, Auraiya, Ayodhya, Azamgarh, Budaun, Baghpat, Ballia, Banda, Bahraich, Bijnor, Farrukhabad, Ghazipur, Gonda, Hamirpur, Hapur, Hardoi, Hathras, Kanpur Dehat, Kasganj, Mahoba, Mirzapur, Moradabad, Muzaffarnagar, Rampur, Sant Kabir Nagar, Shamli, Shravasti, Sitapur and Sonbhadra have completely eliminated cases of coronavirus infection.
