Lucknow, Sep 9 (IANS): Uttar Pradesh now has only 214 active Covid cases left in the state and 31 of the total 75 districts are Covid free. This is lower than the count recorded at the onset of the first wave.

As per the latest Covid bulletin, 37 per cent of the total active cases were in just four districts, namely Prayagraj (24), Gautam Buddha Nagar (20), Lucknow (18) and Jalaun (17).

Thirty one districts of the state are now totally free from coronavirus infection and these are Aligarh, Amroha, Ayodhya, Baghpat, Ballia, Balrampur, Banda, Basti, Bahraich, Bhadohi, Bijnor, Chandauli, Chitrakoot, Deoria, Etah, Fatehpur, Ghazipur, Gonda, Hamirpur, Hapur, Hardoi, Hathras, Kaushambhi, Lalitpur, Mahoba, Muzaffarnagar, Pilibhit, Rampur, Shamli, Siddharth Nagar and Sonbhadra.

The count of active cases in the state dipped as only 16 new cases were detected, while 28 patients recovered in the past 24 hours.

The total number of cases in Uttar Pradesh since the outbreak in 2020 reached 17.09 lakh and the recoveries rose to 16.86 lakh.

No death was reported in the last 24 hours, and the Covid toll in the state remained static at 22,863.

The state government said that in sharp contrast to the situation in Uttar Pradesh, less populated states like Kerala, Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu account for heavy active caseloads.

Uttar Pradesh is, perhaps, the only state in the country which is still conducting nearly two lakh Covid tests every day despite a huge decline in cases and low caseload.