COVID-19: Cases in Uttar Pradesh's Bareilly and Jaunpur Increase Rapidly

Even as Uttar Pradesh takes centerstage for reasons other than the COVID-19 pandemic, the digression can only add to the concern of the spread of the as-yet-incurable disease, which has claimed 1,817 across the state, including the only cabinet member in the state.

From conducting about 5,000 tests per million in mid July the state over the past few days has managed to conduct about 11,000 per million, which has also seen a concomitant rise in the number of cases. The total confirmed cases on July 15 was about 41,000 and just cross a lakh on August 4.

While Lucknow continues to report the most cases, Bareilly and Jaunpur have witness a surge over the past couple of weeks, while the caseload in Agra has seen a decline.

Even though the top five districts, Lucknow,  Kanpur Nagar,  Gautam Buddha Nagar,  Ghaziabad,  and Varanasi account for more than 25% of the caseload in the state, districts such as Prayagraj, Varanasi, Bareilly and Jaunpur are rapidly adding cases to the state’s total.

A factor that should have dissuaded the government from going ahead with the “Bhumi Pujan” at Ayodhya is that the district has seen a doubling of cases week-on-week. It had reported 274 cases the previous week, which rose to 443 this week.

The average growth rate of confirmed cases over the past week is 5.09%, and has hovered around 4-5% over the past couple of months.

There are troubling signs of workers making their way back to cities in other states as they don’t see any job prospects nor financial help coming their way from governments in their home states, especially Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Madhya Pradesh. A report in the Indian Express talks about people from Jaunpur in Uttar Pradesh, returning to Surat in Gujarat to their old jobs. Juanpur has been witness a steep increase in the number of cases lately.

Kanpur Nagar has witnessed the most number of fatalities so far; at 228 fatalities, it is 104 more than Lucknow. Meerut with 102 deaths has been the third-most affected district in terms of fatalities, closely followed by Agra with 99 deaths. Agra district, nevertheless has also seen the most number of recoveries, which has brought down the caseload of the district in recent weeks. As many as 1,515 patients have recovered in Agra. Aligarh is another district that has witnessed recoveries, with as many as 679 recovered cases, as of August 4.

While the increased number of tests have seen the number of confirmed cases grow, the movement of people with migrant workers heading back to work might be cause for worry. The state has crossed a lakh cases, and with more than 41,000 active cases, the state has to keep up its vigil rather than allow mega image boosting events to derail its long-term battle against the pandemic.