Spike in Covid-19 cases in eastern Uttar Pradesh, all 75 districts affected

State health minister Jai Pratap Singh said on Saturday that 1,423 migrant workers, who returned to Uttar Pradesh in recent days, have tested positive for coronavirus disease.

India saw its biggest spike of Covid-19 cases on Sunday with 6,767 new infections reported in the last 24 hours, taking the nationwide tally to 1,31,868.

Daily wage labourers gathered at a city crossing in search of employment after relaxation in lockdown norms in the fourth phase, in Lucknow on Thursday. (ANI Photo)

The number of Covid-19 cases saw a spike in Uttar Pradesh too, with the state’s tally reaching 6,017.

But an analysis of Uttar Pradesh’s dats shows that the disease is spreading faster in eastern part of the state, said the state’s health officials. This is mainly due to the large number of the migrant workers who have arrived in this region during the past 10 days, they said.

State health minister Jai Pratap Singh said on Saturday that 1,423 migrant workers, who returned to Uttar Pradesh in recent days, have tested positive for coronavirus disease.

This constitutes 40 per cent of the total cases in the eastern region of Uttar Pradesh, he said.

The Sultanpur district, which had only five cases of Covid-19 till recently, now has 41 cases, 15 of which were reported on Saturday, the state’s health officials said.

In Jaunpur district, 43 migrant workers have tested positive for Covid-19 while in Barabanki that reported 95 cases in a day on May 21, 49 were migrant workers.

In Jaunpur, 43 migrant workers who had returned last week, were tested positive for the novel coronavirus on Friday, taking the district’s total to 91. Most of them had come back from Maharashtra.

All 75 districts of Uttar Pradesh are now affected by the Sars-CoV-2 virus.

“Most of the migrants who were infected have returned from states like Maharashtra and Gujarat. We have increased our daily testing capacity to over 7,000 samples,” said health minister Jai Pratap Singh.

He said that according to estimates, around 17 lakh migrant workers have returned to Uttar Pradesh via trains and buses. He said that samples of over 50,000 have been tested so far.