Bihar cases up at 830 after 81 test +ve

PATNA:

PATNA:

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The home-coming of migrant workers led to spiralling of cases, with 81 people testing positive for the virus Tuesday, pushing the state tally to 830, with six deaths so far.

Almost one-fourth the total number of cases in Bihar was attributed to the migrant workers. “A total of 190 people who had come from outside the state during lockdown 3.0 (after May 3) have so far tested positive during their random sampling,” said health secretary Lokesh Kumar Singh.

However, considering the spike in the number of cases due to migrant workers, Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar had now instructed health officials to go in for as much as possible testing of the migrant workers.

He said the random testing of samples of migrant workers would not suffice anymore and that efforts should be made to test as many people as possible who were coming from outside the state.

Kumar directed officials to scale up testing facility to 10,000 samples a day against the present average daily testing capacity of 1900-2000 samples, said a spokesperson of the state government.The migrant workers had somewhat spoilt the state’s Covid-19 scoresheet, as 2.21% people had tested positive for the virus against a total 37,430 samples tested at the six government testing laboratories approved by the Indian Council of Medical Research in the state. The percentage of patients testing positive was 1.79% against the total samples tested last week (on May 3), said Singh.

Of the 190 migrant workers to have tested positive for the virus after May 3, around 55 had returned from New Delhi, 46 from Gujarat, 44 from Maharashtra, 16 from West Bengal and 11 from Uttar Pradesh, said an official.

“There were some who returned from other states as well, including Rajasthan (6), Haryana, Telangana (3 each), Jharkhand, Kerala, (1 each) and the source destination of four others were still unknown,” he added.

“The travel history of four people—one each from Auraangabad, Begusarai, Munger and Araria is under investigation,” said a government data, which principal secretary, health, Sanjay Kumar had shared through a tweet.

The number of the migrant workers testing positive for the virus had doubled in less than two days. Till May 10, only around 85 migrant workers had tested positive for the virus as against 1.02 lakh people who had returned from different states this month, as per government data. The Covid-19 cases among the migrants had risen to 190 as against 1,20,131 who had returned to Bihar till Tuesday.

Six more jawans of the Bihar Military Police had tested positive from Patna’s Khajpura locality, a red zone, on Tuesday. With this, the total number of infected personnel in Bihar police had gone up to 27, including 19 from the BMP alone. Eight personnel had tested positive on Monday.

Of the 81 cases Tuesday, Khagaria accounted for 16, followed by West Champaran (14), Rohtas (13), Begusarai (9), Patna (7), Madhubani (4), Muzaffarpur (3), Aurangabad, Gopalganj, Darbhanga (2 each) and Supaul, Banka, Purnea, Bhagalpur, Siwan, Katihar, Bhojpur and Arwal (1 each).

Around 219 people had tested positive for coronavirus in three days.

Six Covid-19 patients had recovered during the last 24 hours, taking the total recoveries to 383, with a case recovery rate of 48% in the state. Given the spike in cases, the recovery rate had now gone down from 53% on Monday to 48%.

Munger 115, Patna (79), Rohtas (72), Buxar (56), Nalanda (51), Begusarai (40), Siwan (34), Kaimur (32), Madhubani (30), Khagaria (27), Bhagalpur (26), West Champaran (25), Gopalganj (22), Bhojpur (21), Aurangabad (17), Darbhanga (16), East Champaran (14), Nawada (13), Katihar, Muzaffarpur, Arwal (12 each), Saharsa (10), Madhepura, Kishanganj, Samastipur, Saran (9 each), Gaya, Sheikhpura (8 each), Sitamarhi, Banka (7 each), Jehanabad (5), Lakhisarai, Araria, Vaishali, Supaul, Purnea (4 each), Sheohar 3.