After record cases, Bihar goes for 15-day lockdown, UP makes weekend restrictions permanent

NEW DELHI: Bihar will go for a full lockdown from July 16 to July 31 while Uttar Pradesh has made weekend restrictions permanent as both states saw a record-high number of cases on Tuesday with a peak expected there in the coming months.

Bihar saw a high of 1432 Covid-19 positive cases on Tuesday with a number of BJP leaders in the state and the home secretary Amir Subhani found to be infected. The state has now seen over 3800 positive cases in the last three years after 1116 cases on Monday and 1266 cases on Sunday, prompting the JDU-BJP government to decide upon a 15-day full lockdown. 24 BJP leaders in the state were found positive for coronavirus out of 110 tests done on party-men and the party office has been sealed. Bihar’s rural development minister Shailesh Kumar has also been detected Covid-19 positive. This prompted Opposition leader Tejashwi Yadav to again question how Bihar could go to polls in three months time.

In Uttar Pradesh, a high of 1656 cases were reported on Tuesday after 1664 cases on Monday and the state government has now issued guidelines making weekend restrictions permanent in the state with all the markets will be closed.



The lockdown steps in both states follow as cases are expected to further increase here since testing is only picking up now and these states are towards the end of the chart of tests conducted per million population. The total number of positive cases in Bihar stands at 18,853 now while they stand at 39,724 in UP. The latter has conducted 11.57 lakh tests, the third-highest in total number in the country behind Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra, while Bihar has conducted just 3.29 lakh tests in all. Bihar is also conducting less than 140 tests per million daily which is the “Comprehensive Testing” standard specified by WHO. What is of concern to the Centre is UP and Bihar now reporting a similar number of daily cases with a hugely varied number of testing. While Bihar is conducting about 10,000 daily tests and clocking a double-digit positivity rate this week, like 14% on Tuesday, UP is now conducting nearly 40,000 daily tests and the daily test positivity ratio is below 5 percent.

Bihar’s fatality rate however remains well below 1% with 143 deaths while it is touching about 2.5% in UP now with the casualty figure near 1000. The rapidly rising number of cases however has meant that Bihar’s recovery rate has now dropped below 70% while it is hovering around the national recovery rate of 63% for Uttar Pradesh. “The state is well-equipped to handle the number of active patients at about 14,000 presently as the earlier lockdown period has been used to increase the bed capacity to nearly 1.5 lakh,” a senior UP government official told ET. Bihar, however, could face a challenge on this count as active cases are touching 5,700 and the big crisis is the state capital Patna with 945 active cases.