Lucknow, Apr 8 (IANS): Coronavirus is marching ahead menacingly in Uttar Pradesh with the state reporting 8,490 new Covid cases in the past 24 hours, officials said on Thursday.

Additional Chief Secretary, Medical Health, Amit Mohan Prasad, said that 50 per cent of the cases in the past 24 hours have come from four cities - Lucknow, Kanpur, Prayagraj. and Varanasi.

The number of active cases in the state are 39,338 and 39 deaths have been reported in the past 24 hours.

For the first time in recent history, queues have been seen at the cremation grounds in Lucknow where tokens were handed out to the kin of the deceased for their turn.

Five staff members at the postmortem house in King George's Medical University tested positive but post mortem of bodies could not be stopped for obvious reasons on Thursday.

Meanwhile, night curfew has been extended to Meerut, Ghaziabad, Noida, and Bareilly apart from Lucknow, Kanpur, and Varanasi.