India News | Bihar S COVID-19 Death Toll Rises by 90; Positivity Rate Falls Substantially

Patna, May 13 (PTI) The COVID-19 death toll in Bihar rose by 90 on Thursday and climbed 3593, even as the Nitish Kumar government asserted that the situation was set to improve, pointing out a decline in the positivity rate since the beginning of this month. "Corona shall lose, Bihar shall win", was the refrain of an ebullient health minister Mangal Pandey who came out with a flurry of tweets underscoring statistics that indicated a let up in the spread of the contagion during the second wave.

Pandey said the state's positivity rate was now around eight per cent, a drop of four per cent compared with a week ago and a nearly seven per cent decline since May 01 when it was in excess of 15 per cent.

Notably, a full lockdown was imposed in the state for the period May 05-15 in a bid to put brakes on the explosive rate at which the contagion had been spreading of late. The chief minister announced earlier in the day that in view of the "positive outcome" of the lockdown, a decision has been taken to extend the same till May 25. A few modifications have been made in guidelines which include permitting shops dealing in hardware and construction material to do business two days in a book. These commercial establishments, along with shops selling grocery, fruits, vegetables, dairy products, meat and fish would be allowed to engage in business from 6 am to 10 am, according to a notification issued by the state home department.

According to the health department, the state's active caseload which had remained above one lakh for more than a week has dipped to 96,277.

The number of fresh cases was 7,752.

In the last fortnight, the number of people testing positive in a day had many a time stood in excess of 15,000.

Altogether 6.30 lakh people have been infected with the dreaded coronavirus since the outbreak of the pandemic more than a year ago. Of them, 5.30 lakh have recovered.

Pandey also sought to highlight that the state was reporting relatively less number of cases despite a high testing rate.

In the last 24 hours, 97,664 samples were tested. Total number of samples tested in the state so far has exceeded 2.77 crore, the health minister tweeted.

The health minister also thanked the Centre for helping the state in its fight against coronavirus by sending 2100 vials of the antiviral injection Remdesivir in addition to "150 D type oxygen cylinders" which are known to have a capacity of more than 40 litres each.

(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)