Lucknow has fallen prey to the violent spread of the coronavirus infection spread as it furnished a high total of 400 fresh cases on Friday. This statistic is reportedly the Lucknow’s highest tally in the last 41 days. With this addition, the aggregate caseload has breached the 68,545 mark, which further accounts for 13% of the entire state load, highest among all other districts. Lucknow hosts as many as 3,340 active cases given the 93.7% high recuperation rate.
Is this the Second Wave?
Several medical experts had anticipated the rise of a second- stronger wave of coronavirus, post the festival of Diwali, in the backdrop of poor air quality in the winter season, and righty so, as the infection has intensified in the state capital as expected. Lucknow’s coronavirus curve is rising steadily since Wednesday. On Friday, the coronavirus clutched about 400 hosts in its deadly trap.
Besides Lucknow, other state districts including Prayagraj, Kanpur, Gautam Buddha Nagar and Ghaziabad have also been witnessing an acute upward trend for the last two weeks, raising fears of the onset of the virus ‘second wave’.
Shelter homes & target testing to the rescue-
The Uttar Pradesh government has marked the acute case rise as the state’s priority and has launched a multi-pronged strategy to counter the growth and spread of the virus. Uttar Pradesh has initiated a 12 days focused testing program across all districts to sample various groups who project a higher susceptibility to the virus given a broad exposure to human contact. These groups include state slums, people in temporary and permanent prisons, children in shelter homes, residents of old age and women shelter homes, street vendors at markets and weekly markets, teacher and students of classes 9 to 12, government and private offices.
Apart from this, the state has also decided to establish more night shelter homes to prevent people, migrant workers from sleeping on the roads in the peak of winter season. The state has also tasked these establishments to authenticate the infection control protocol. Uttar Pradesh Administration has also decided to ramp up testing, surveillance across the state and boost contact tracing to efficiently identify and break the virus chain.
A message to our readers
The increasing cases of coronavirus in Lucknow and all across the state rings as a warning bell for all of us. We request our readers to maintain social distancing and adhere to all safety and health precautions to prevent infection contraction. Use of face masks, sanitisers, gloves, face shields and other such non-pharmaceutical measures is the need of the hour, and there are no two ways about it. We appeal all citizens to cooperate with the local, municipal and state administrations to eradicate the virus, right from the grassroots.
