As COVID-19 shows a clear sign of another uptick in many parts of India, Uttar Pradesh has made RTPCR tests mandatory for all passengers arriving in the capital Lucknow from states with a high caseload.
The Uttar Pradesh government has also directed officials to conduct COVID tests at railway stations, bus stations, airport and also at the Lucknow toll plaza of Agra Expressway.
On Monday the government had also made the wearing of face masks mandatory in six NCR districts and Lucknow.
CM Yogi Adityanath directed the officials to maintain utmost vigil on the health of children, especially in the NCR districts, and to create awareness about COVID-19 protocol in schools.
According to a government spokesman, the state has set up as many as 6,700 Paediatric ICUs.?
The comparatively high infection rate among children, including school students have a growing concern for the authorities.
In Gautam Buddh Nagar district, adjoining Delhi, on Wednesday, a total of 103 new COVID-19 cases were reported, out of which 18 were children.
"Of the new cases, 18 are aged below 18 years," Chief Medical Officer Dr Sunil Kumar Sharma said.
Meanwhile, the daily COVID-19 tally in India has crossed the 2,000 mark for the first time in months.
With 2,380 new coronavirus infections being reported in a day, India's total tally of COVID-19 cases rose to 4,30,49,974, while the active cases increased to 13,433, according to the Union Health Ministry data updated on Thursday.
The death toll climbed to 5,22,062 with 56 fresh fatalities, the data updated at 8 am stated.
The active cases comprise 0.03 per cent of the total infections, while the national COVID-19 recovery rate remained at 98.76 per cent, the ministry said.
An increase of 1,093 cases has been recorded in the active COVID-19 caseload in a span of 24 hours.
The daily positivity rate was recorded as 0.53 per cent and the weekly positivity rate as 0.43 per cent, according to the ministry.
The R-value COVID, an indicator of how quickly the infection is spreading, has increased to over one for the first time since January, estimates a researcher from Chennai's Institute of Mathematical Sciences.
The country's R-value, steadily increasing over the last few weeks, is 1.07 for the week between April 12-18, according to Sitabhra Sinha. In the preceding April 5-11 week, it was 0.93.
The last time the R-value was above 1 was in the week between January 16-22, when the value was 1.28, Sinha said.
"This increase in R-value is not just because of Delhi but also Haryana and Uttar Pradesh," the mathematician, who has been tracking the R number for India since the beginning of the pandemic, told PTI.
An R-value of over 1 indicates that the number of active cases has increased. R should be contained below 1 to control the pandemic. An R number lower than 1 indicates that the disease will stop spreading as there aren't enough people being infected to sustain the outbreak.
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