Lucknow on Sunday reported 69 fresh COVID cases. The tally, reportedly the highest in Uttar Pradesh, has further been registered as the sharpest single-day spike in the city in about four months. Besides, Lucknow also has the highest active case count among all UP districts with 274 cases.

The sudden case spurt in Lucknow has been reported after cases surfaced in Lucknow's SGPGI, where two doctors and a paramedic staff tested positive. Most coronavirus patients that were found on the day, came in direct contact with the medical personnel and were detected as part of the contact tracing protocol.

As per health department officials, Sarojininagar with 13 cases was found to be the most infected area on Sunday. Chinhat with 10 cases, Aliganj with 9 and Alambagh with 8, were found to be next high-risk zones. Additionally, 6 new cases were found in Kaiserbagh and Old Lucknow, while 4 were found in Indiranagar. Gosainganj, NK Road Turiyaganj reported three cases each and the remaining cases came for rural areas, added officials.

On the other hand, the rate of recovery is steady in Lucknow, depicting healing trends. On Sunday, around 28 patients recovered from the coronavirus, pushing the cumulative tally to 294828. No deaths related to the pandemic were reported in the last 24 hours, limiting the death toll to 2694.

District surveillance officer (DSO) Dr Milind Vardhan said that there is no need to panic as the major chunk of active cases in Lucknow either are asymptomatic or have mild symptoms. This means that most patietns are recovering in home isolation. Purpotedly, there are only 9 patients under hospital care in Lucknow, who confirmed the infection when they came for the treatment of other non-coronavirus illness, indicating that these cases, too, are non-critical.

Meanwhile, the city health department has amped up COVID-defence on a war footing. The DSO has issued directives for all private government and private health centres and hospitals in Lucknow to reserve one or two beds for COVID-19 patients.

The order has been pressed to ensure that non-COVID hospital do not pressurise patients to transfer to another facility upon virus detection. This will open basic COVID treatment facilities to patients, pushing rapid recovery.