High court wants to know action taken to check Covid-19 cases 7 more succumb to virus, Lko’s daily count crosses 300-mark

Borders of districts seeing spurt in cases should be well guarded, court directs state government

PRAYAGRAJ: Taking a serious note of rise in Covid-19 cases in Lucknow, Ghaziabad, Gautam Buddh Nagar, Meerut and Kanpur Nagar, the Allahabad high court on Wednesday directed the head of administration and police force of these districts to file affidavits mentioning therein the steps they were taking to restrain the rise in corona cases.

Hearing a PIL related to Covid-19, a division bench comprising justices Siddhartha Varma and Ajit Kumar observed, “So far as the above-named districts are concerned, looking at the rise of active Covid-19 cases, it is clear that the police are not taking as much action as is required.”

“Even though the additional advocate general, representing the state government, informed that in the above districts, prohibitory orders under Section 144 of Criminal Procedure Code had been imposed, we find that there is a definite rise in the active cases of Covid-19 in the above districts and for this purpose, the state government along with the local administration may come up with such steps which would restrain the rise of cases”, observed the bench.

Considering the suggestions given by the advocate commissioners and various members of the bar, the court directed that in the districts where the active cases were rising, there should be 100 per cent wearing of masks by the residents.

The court directed the state government that the borders of these districts should be well guarded so that people of the other districts and states coming in may properly be checked.

The court also directed that the medical facility vis-a-vis checking and treatment should be increased/ extended in the above-named districts.

“In this regard, the figures of testing and recovery rate may be provided to the court by December 10, 2020”, directed the bench while fixing December 10 as the next date of hearing.

LUCKNOW : Lucknow’s daily Covid count crossed the 300mark again while UP’s infection tally mounted to 5,49,228 with 1,967 new cases and the death toll rose to 7,848 after 31 more fatalities on Thursday.

Lucknow reported 331 fresh cases in comparison to 236 and 240 cases on the previous two days, said health department officials.

Fresh cases were reported in areas like Indira Nagar 27, Gomti Nagar 34, Rae Bareli road 21, Chowk 22, Cantt 18, Ashiana 10, Jankipuram 14, Aliganj 11, Hasanganj 10, Vikas Nagar 16, Hazratganj 10 and Alambagh 19.

During the day, samples of 9,985 people were taken under the contact-tracing exercise while 244 patients were discharged from hospitals in Lucknow. So far, Lucknow reported 72,579 cases, of which 68,035 had recovered. As many as 1,015 patients had succumbed to the

virus. “The recovery rate in Lucknow is 93.73%,” said Dr Abhishek Shukla, secretary general, Association of International Doctors.

Elsewhere in the state, Meerut reported 220 fresh cases, Kanpur 87, Gautam Buddh Nagar 120, Ghaziabad and Varanasi 113 and Agra 63 cases. Lucknow reported the maximum deaths -seven, Meerut five, Kanpur three, Prayagraj and Varanasi one each.

UP had till now tested 19788497 Covid samples, including 1,69,895 in the past 24 hours. The recovery rate was 94.4% in the state.