27 more test positive for COVID-19 in Bihar; total cases 170

Bihar saw the sharpest ever jump in the number of coronavirus cases on Thursday as 27 more people tested positive for the infection, taking the state's tally to 170, a top official said.

Of the fresh cases, eight each were from Patna and Kaimur districts, six from Sasaram, four from Munger and one from Siwan, Principal Secretary, Health, Sanjay Kumar said.

The eight fresh cases in Patna were reported from the state capital's Khajpura locality. These include a 35-year-old man, two girls aged 8 and 14 and five women aged between 23 and 57.

Khajpura, which has emerged as a veritable hotspot, had earlier also reported eight cases, the infection chain starting off with a 32-year-old woman admitted to AIIMS, Patna for breathing trouble but with no travel history.

So far, Kaimur had not reported any COVID-19 cases.

All the eight cases in the district were reported from Chainpur area. The patients -- five males and three females -- caught the infection from a person who had tested positive for coronavirus earlier, Kumar said.

A 60-year-old woman from Sasaram, headquarters of the adjoining Rohtas district, had tested positive for COVID-19 earlier this week. She had visited her daughter in Chainpur. More than 30 residents of the area have been quarantined and kept under observation since then, he said.

The patients in Kaimur include two boys aged 4 and 12 and three men aged between 17 and 35. The three women are around 18 years old.

The new cases from Sasaram include a 36-year-old woman and five men in the age group of 17 to 63, Kumar said.

Four residents of Jamalpur in Munger -- a 30-year-old man and three women in their 60s -- have tested positive for coronavirus. The district now has 31 cases and is among the worst affected in the state.

Jamalpur has reported more than a dozen cases in the past one week, most of which were traced to a 60-year-old vegetable seller who had travelled to Nalanda district last month to attend a Tablighi Jamaat congregation.

In Siwan's Goriakothi block, a 20-year-old man has tested positive and his contact tracing is underway.

Siwan has the second-highest number of coronavirus cases in Bihar at 30. More than 20 of these have been reported from a village in Raghunathpur block where members of one family contracted the infection from a Middle East returnee earlier this month.

So far, 44 coronavirus patients have recovered in the state and 13,785 samples tested.

Taking a serious note of the spike in the number of COVID-19 cases, the state health department issued a circular making it mandatory for all people to wear face masks while travelling and visiting public places like food, vegetable and medicine shops, and dairies.

Those failing to do so will be penalised as per provisions of the Bihar Epidemics Diseases, COVID-19 Regulations, it said.