Agra, May 14 (IANS): The Uttar Pradesh government has shunted the SN Medical College principal and the Chief Medical Superintendent of the hospital after a chorus of protests and complaints of mismanagement and lack of preparedness to deal with the rising wave of Covid-19 patients.

Kanpur's Sanjay Kale will take over as the new principal of the Agra Medical College on Thursday.

The number of Covid-19 patients rose to 785. District Magistrate PN Singh said 9,974 samples had so far been tested from the 44 hot spots. The number of recovered was 379. The number of deaths so far stood at 25.

The reports of Covid-19 infected inmates in the Agra Central jail will be released later in the day. However, jail authorities had already isolated 100 inmates in a separate ward, as a precaution.

For the past four days, after the special team sent by the chief minister arrived, the police has tightened the lockdown. They have been regularly restricting people in the hot spots. The movement of vegetable vendors has been suspended.

For the moment the primary concern is the mass influx of migrant labourers in the vast rural hinterland. Since the villages are ill-equipped with required level of medical preparedness, the results could be devastating, according to some health activists echoing WHO warning.

Author, professor and retired Col Rajesh Chauhan told IANS: "Lockdown was not required in the first place. They should have taken the specifics of the Indian situation into account, climate, genetic quality. Infection itself is a vaccine. Innate immunity of Indians could work."