Uttar Pradesh: As testing drops, so do new cases, but infection rate remains high

While the decline in daily Covid-19 cases may have come as a welcome sign, the drop in corresponding tests meant that the positivity rate stood high, even touching a high of 18% on April 26 and April 27.

A patients who was in home isolation arrives at a hospital with an oxygen cylinder in Lucknow on Thursday. (Express Photo: Vishal Srivastav)

The last few days when the daily new Covid-19 cases saw a steady decline in Uttar Pradesh – after hitting a high of 38,055 on April 24 – also saw fewer tests. The number of daily testing, which touched a high of over 2.29 lakh samples on April 25 (Sunday), dropped to around 1.84 lakh by April 27 (Tuesday) – a drop of nearly 20% – leading to a corresponding decline in the number of new cases – from over 38,000 on April 24 to 30,000 on April 28, a drop of nearly 21%.

Newsletter | Click to get the day’s best explainers in your inbox

While the decline in daily Covid cases may have come as a welcome sign for the administrators, the drop in corresponding tests meant that the positivity rate, which signifies the infection rate, stood high, even touching a high of 18% on April 26 and April 27.

With the daily test returning back to its 2.25 lakh level on Thursday, the number of daily Covid cases also shot up to 35,156 from Wednesday’s low of 29,824.

Meanwhile, the state reported the highest single-day deaths on Thursday with 298 fatalities, taking the Covid death toll past 12,000.

Lucknow reported the highest number of fresh cases and fatalities with 4,126 people testing positive and 37 deaths in the last 24 hours. A total of 19 deaths were reported from Prayagraj district, while 16 were reported from Kanpur Nagar, and 12 each from Ghaziabad and Chandauli.

Of the fresh cases, Lucknow reported 4,126 cases, Kanpur 1,896 cases, Varanasi 1,598 cases, Gautam Buddh Nagar 1,478 cases, Allahabad 984 cases, Meerut 965 cases and Ghaziabad 898 cases, according to the state Health Department bulletin.

Story continues below this ad

Lucknow continued to have the highest number of active cases with 46,299 Covid-19 patients, followed by Kanpur Nagar (18,017), and Varanasi (15,897) and Prayagaraj (14,161).

Meanwhile, 1985-batch IAS officer Deepak Trivedi died during treatment at SGPGI, Lucknow, on Thursday. He was posted as Revenue Board chairman. Badaun SDM Kishore Gupta also died after contracting Covid-19, officials said.

Asad Rehman

Asad Rehman is with the national bureau of The Indian Express and covers politics and policy focusing on religious minorities in India. A journalist for over eight years, Rehman moved to this role after covering Uttar Pradesh for five years for The Indian Express. During his time in Uttar Pradesh, he covered politics, crime, health, and human rights among other issues. He did extensive ground reports and covered the protests against the new citizenship law during which many were killed in the state. During the Covid pandemic, he did extensive ground reporting on the migration of workers from the metropolitan cities to villages in Uttar Pradesh. He has also covered some landmark litigations, including the Babri Masjid-Ram temple case and the ongoing Gyanvapi-Kashi Vishwanath temple dispute. Prior to that, he worked on The Indian Express national desk for three years where he was a copy editor. Rehman studied at La Martiniere, Lucknow and then went on to do a bachelor's degree in History from Ramjas College, Delhi University. He also has a Masters degree from the AJK Mass Communication Research Centre, Jamia Millia Islamia. ... Read More