Amid the unprecedented second wave of COVID-19 across the country, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath on Thursday held a press conference to inform about the current coronavirus situation in the state. The Uttar Pradesh CM elaborated on the measures taken to ascertain oxygen facilities to COVID patients and shared updates on vaccination.
While speaking on the shortage of oxygen and COVID vaccination in the state, CM Yogi said, “During the second wave, there has been a requirement of over 1000 MT oxygen every day, Therefore, we have arranged for 1030 MT oxygen in the state. In the state, 1.43 crore vaccines have been provided to people above 45 years of age and 2,65,745 vaccines to people aged 18-45 years. We have so far provided more than 20,000 oxygen concentrators within the state for the need of far-flung centers.”
The UP CM added, “To stop this crisis from taking place again, the PM-CARE fund is helping the state to set up 161 oxygen plants. Our government is also taking the help of other departments to set up more oxygen plants in Uttar Pradesh.”
On May 11, the World Health Organization (WHO) had praised the work of the Uttar Pradesh government by surveillance, tracing, and testing of COVID-19 patients. The Yogi Adityanath government had initiated a house to house active case finding of COVID in rural areas to contain transmission by testing people with symptoms for rapid isolation disease management and contact tracing.
Uttar Pradesh recorded 18,125 fresh COVID-19 cases that raised the infection count to 15,63,238, while 329 new fatalities pushed the death toll from the pandemic to 16,372, officials said on Wednesday. On the bright side, the number of active cases in the state has come down by over 1.04 lakh in the past 11 days, Additional Chief Secretary, Health, Amit Mohan Prasad said. The COVID-19 recovery rate now stands at 85.7 percent in Uttar Pradesh, he said.
On April 30, there were about 3.10 lakh active cases, while the number currently stands at 2,06,615, the official said. With this, the total number of patients in the state who have recovered from the infection has risen to 13,40,251, Prasad added.