Bhopal, May 22 (IANS): For the eighth successive day a high number of fresh coronavirus cases continued to swamp Madhya Pradesh. Thursdays 248 cases took the state's tally to 5981. The average of positive cases through the past eight days has been 233.

Indore reported 59 fresh cases onThursday taking its total to 2774 while the death toll in the district is 105. The state's toll has risen to 266.

Ujjain (61),Bhopal (27), Burhanpur (12) Khandwa (22),Morena (14) and Rewa (11) were other towns with a high number of new cases.

The government does acknowledge the rising trend caused by heavy movement of migrant workers. But its reactions have raised questions.

On Thursday the government relaxed a ban on marriage ceremonies. But the new order restricts attendance to 50. Violations have been threatened with FIRs. With a bride testing positive during a wedding in Bhopal on wednesday 35 members had to be quarantined.

There have been knee-jerk reactions galore.

The initial response was reshuffling of officers in the face of a rising number of fresh infections. The Collector, 2010-batch IAS officer Tanvi Sundriyal, was replaced with another 2010-batch IAS officer Anay Dwivedi and was posted as a deputy secretary in the state secretariat.

A 2012-batch IPS officer, Shiv Dayal, was replaced by another 2012-batch officer and commander of Special Armed Force's 7th battalion Vivek Singh. Dayal will be the new commander of the battalion, a Home department order said. On May 4, collector of Ujjain, Shashank Mishra, and on May 7, SP Sachin Atulkar were shifted when the city became a Covid-19 hotspot with the death rate being highest among big cities.

Indore collector Lokesh Jatav was shifted and replaced with Manish Singh on March 28. Three days later, Indore police chief deputy inspector general (DIG) of police Ruchivardhan Mishra was shifted to a smaller district in the region. Indore has not witnessed any significant improvement in the spread of virus.