Lucknow, Dec 24 (PTI) Uttar Pradesh reported 21 more COVID-19 fatalities and 1,166 new cases on Thursday, pushing the death toll to 8,266 and the infection tally to 5,78,697 in the state.

Currently, there are 16,229 active cases in the state, and 5,54,202 people have recovered from the disease so far, Additional Chief Secretary, Health, Amit Mohan Prasad told reporters here.

He said the recovery rate in the state stood at 95.75 per cent.

Prasad said over 1.40 lakh samples were tested for the disease on Wednesday, and the total number of tests conducted so far was around 2.29 crore.

(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)