Bhopal, May 5 (IANS): With 43 fresh corona positive cases reported overnight, Indore took a U-turn on the first day of lockdown 3 on Monday.

The state government had on Saturday claimed to have arrested the spread of the virus, but Indore, Bhopal with 31 new cases and Ujjain with 10 have given fresh reasons for worry.

Ujjain has witnessed a spurt of corona activity since the past one week with 35 deaths. With 2,942 patients testing positive and 165 deaths, Madhya Pradesh is on top with a 5.34 per cent death rate - even ahead of Gujarat's 4.99 and Maharashtra's 4.21 per cent.

The government has replaced Ujjain District Collector Shashank Mishra with Indore Municipal Commissioner Ashish Singh.

Indore, Bhopal, Jabalpur and Ujjain have remained in the red zone while most other parts of the state have stirred into action. The other districts in the western part of the state that have stayed in the red zone are Barwani, Dhar, Dewas, Khargone and Khandwa.

In Indore, the hottest spot, the number rose from 1,568 to 1,611 in Indore on Monday morning. So far 77 persons have died and 362 patients have recovered. On Sunday night, one death was confirmed from corona-related complications. The victim was an 82-year-old person.

After three days of a declining curve, there was an upward trend in virus-infected cases. Over 10 percent of the 428 patients have tested positive in the latest round.

The state health department had stepped up testing by sending samples to Puducherry and Ahmedabad laboratories. However, the reports from them were not received on Sunday and the figure could go up.