India News | 2 More Deaths Take Bihar COVID Toll to 111; Tally Rises to 14,330
Get latest articles and stories on India at LatestLY. The death toll from COVID-19 in Bihar reached 111 with two fatalities reported in the last 24 hours, while 352 fresh cases raised the state's virus count to 14,330, the health department said on Friday.
Patna, Jul 10 (PTI) The death toll from COVID-19 in Bihar reached 111 with two fatalities reported in the last 24 hours, while 352 fresh cases raised the state's virus count to 14,330, the health department said on Friday.
According to the COVID-19 bulletin issued by the department, the new deaths were reported from Bhagalpur and East Champaran districts.
Bhagalpur now accounts for eight deaths, next only to Patna which has reported 13. Other districts which have reported a high number of fatalities are Darbhanga and Samastipur (seven each), East Champaran and Rohtas (six each) and Muzaffarpur, Nalanda, Saran and Siwan (five each).
Patna also tops the state in terms of the number of confirmed cases (1,558), out of which 73 were reported on Friday. Bhagalpur, which has the second-highest number of infections (840) in the state, recorded a maximum of 84 fresh cases.
Altogether 10,251 people have recovered from the disease, 459 of them in the last 24 hours, the department said.
Bihar has been rattled by a spurt which has added close to 1,800 cases since Wednesday, and it has more than a quarter of its 38 districts under fresh lockdown imposed by the respective local administrations.
The districts where restrictions have been reintroduced are Patna, Bhagalpur, East Champaran, West Champaran, Nawada, Nalanda, Jehanabad, Begusarai, Araria and Kishanganj.
The lockdowns have been imposed for varied periods in different districts.
The state health department also came out with directions for sprucing up the system. A notification ordered that the Indira Gandhi Institute of Medical Sciences in Patna, patterned after AIIMS but controlled by the Bihar government, shall be converted into a dedicated COVID-19 hospital.
It would be the second medical facility in the city, after the Nalanda Medical College and Hospital, to have been declared a dedicated COVID-19 facility.
Principal Secretary, Health, Uday Singh Kumawat directed 10 hospitals of eight districts to ensure that 50 per cent of the total number of beds are kept aside for setting up isolation wards.
Chief Minister Nitish Kumar appealed to the people to avoid panic while maintaining vigil. In a statement, he pointed out that the state's recovery rate was 71.54 per cent, significantly higher than the national average of 62.42 per cent.
The number of tests conducted in the last 24 hours was 7,595, according to figures made available by the state health department.
However, the testing rate in Bihar remains lower than many other states for which the government is being routinely targeted by the Opposition.
The number of samples tested so far is 2.89 lakh.
(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)