COVID-19 tally crosses 1,000-mark in Bihar, Patna reports

Bihar breached the four-digit-mark in terms of number of confirmed COVID-19 cases on Friday when 19 people tested positive for the disease and took the tally in the state to 1,018, an official said here.

According to Principal Secretary, Health, Sanjay Kumar, Patna district reported its 100th case after a 26-year-old woman tested positive for the novel coronavirus.

Nearly half of the cases in the state capital have been reported from the Khajpura locality.

The Bihar Military Polices 14th battalion has also fallen prey to the contagion with 21 of its personnel having tested positive till date.

Three other women one each from Lakhisarai, Madhubani and Vaishali tested positive during the day and the Vaishali patient, who was 76-year-old, happened to be the oldest among the 19 cases, the official said.

Vaishali reported two cases the other being a 44-year-old man hailing from a different area in the district.

Siwan and Khagaria reported five cases each, raising the respective tallies for the districts to 43 and 41. Khagaria reported its first four cases as late as May 8 and all are migrant labourers. On the other hand, 32 patients from Siwan have so far been discharged after recovery.

The central Bihar district of Nawada reported one fresh case while two more people tested positive in Jamui, which became the last of the 38 districts in the state to be affected by the contagion earlier this week.

With 122 cases, Munger remains at the top while other badly affected districts comprising Rohtas (77), Nalanda (66), Buxar (59) and Begusarai (47).

Seven patients, including a woman, from Patna and one each from Munger, Vaishali, East Champaran, Sitamarhi and Rohtas have so far died while 438 have been discharged after recovery.

Altogether 32 police personnel, including those from the BMP, have tested positive across the state. An IAS officer was infected a couple of days ago in Nalanda district where he was deputed.

After the first two cases were reported in Bihar on March 22, it took four weeks for the tally to reach the three-digit-mark on April 19.

There has been a steep hike since then, attributed in no small measure to the heavy influx of migrants in special trains and buses.

The state government puts the number of those having landed till May 14 at 2.46 lakh, most of them from states like Maharashtra, Gujarat, Rajasthan and Punjab.

The number of migrants testing positive for COVID-19 upon return is 358, most of them from Delhi (102), Gujarat (98) and Maharashtra (82).

Total number of samples tested is 42,645 and the state is striving to raise its testing rate at present around 1,800 per day to nearly 10,000 a day so as to effectively check the spread of the contagion that has been galloping with migrants coming back in droves.