49 fresh Covid cases in UP, active count reaches 266

LUCKNOW: Forty-nine more people, including eight in Lucknow, tested positive for Covid in Uttar Pradesh on Friday, taking the number of active cases under treatment in the state to 266, close to the August 30 figure of 269, as the rising trend continued after a nearly four-month lull.

Among the 266 active Covid cases, 54 are in Lucknow, 47 in Gautam Buddha Nagar, 32 in Ghaziabad, 15 in Muzaffarnagar and 14 in Prayagraj, according to the health department data.

The 49 new cases across the state were reported from 15 districts. Gautam Buddha Nagar had the highest 12 cases, Lucknow eight, Ghaziabad nine, Jhansi four and Prayagraj three, according to the state health department data.

At present, 37 districts in the state do not have any active Covid case.

Since August, the number of active Covid cases had kept falling in Uttar Pradesh and the new daily cases remained below 30 in September, October and November before the upward trend started in December. Before Friday, the previous highest number of new cases (33) for the current month was recorded on December 18.

“In all, 1,98,164 Covid samples were tested in the past 24 hours and 49 were positive for the Covid infection,” said additional chief secretary (medical health) Amit Mohan Prasad in a press statement. The eight people who tested positive for Covid in Lucknow included a traveller from Dubai and one person among those for whom contact tracing was done after Dimple Yadav, former Kannauj MP and wife of Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav, tested positive.

Both Dimple and her daughter, who tested positive, are in home isolation, said a senior health official.

Akhilesh Yadav had tested negative for Covid. The traveller who returned from Dubai is in home isolation at Napier Road residence and is asymptomatic. Two other cases are from one family. A woman and her son who came to KGMU to see a doctor tested positive.

A couple in Gomti Nagar, the owner of a clay factory in Jagdishpur, and another person from Vikramaditya Marg also tested positive. He is the contact of a positive case.

Get Covid jab, take home a litre of edible oil

Aiming to boost vaccination coverage, the health department has launched a scheme where each person now getting a Covid vaccine dose will be given one litre of edible oil from government vaccination centres in Lucknow.