Bihar's COVID-19 toll reaches 38 with two deaths; 187 new cases raise tally to 6,581

Patna, Jun 15 () The death toll due to COVID-19 in Bihar rose to 38 on Monday with two more casualties, while 187 fresh cases took the state's tally to 6,581, a health department official sai d.

Muzaffarpur district reported its second death, which was of a 72-year-old man who returned from Delhi recently, and Madhubani district registered its first fatality of a 55-year-old man who returned from Mumbai, State Health Secretary Lokesh Kumar Singh said.

Begusarai, Khagaria and Vaishali have reported three casualties each. Besides Muzaffarpur, other districts reporting two deaths each are Bhojpur, Darbhanga, Jehanabad, Patna, Saran, Sitamarhi and Siwan. Thirteen other districts, including Madhubani, have reported one death each.

All 38 districts of the state have reported COVID-19 cases, Patna and Bhagalpur being the worst affected ones with respective tallies of 329 and 327, while Jamui, which has the lowest tally, has reported 51 cases.

Other districts with large numbers of coronavirus cases are Madhuani (303), Begusarai (301), Khagaria (293), Rohtas (282) and Munger (270).

Altogether 4,226 patients have recovered after being cured in Bihar. Districts with a high number of recovered cases are Begusarai (259), Rohtas (245), Khagaria (244), Patna (204) and Bhagalpur (203).

The number of samples tested till date was 1.27 lakh and the health secretary said the state has spruced up its testing capacity with facilities installed in all the 38 districts.

The state was at present home to 384 active containment zones while 47 other localities have been "de-notified as containment zones" after these reported no fresh case in the last four weeks.

June 15 was also the last date when block-level quarantine centres, set up to contain the massive influx of migrants from across the country during the lockdown, were to remain functional.

Information and Public Relations Department Secretary Anupam Kumar said that by Monday, only 455 such quarantine centres had remained functional with 6,082 people housed in those facilities.

When the migrants' influx was at its peak in the end of May, the number of such quarantine centres was more than 10,000 and, the IPRD secretary said, a total of 15.33 lakh people have returned home after completing their 14-day mandatory stay at these facilities.

The influx of migrants has also been blamed for the massive spike in COVID-19 cases in Bihar over the past month-and-a-half. The number of migrants testing positive between May 3 and June 14 was 4,449. NAC NN KJ KJ