Bihar CM Nitish Kumar tests COVID negative after attending event with infected BJP leader

Days after Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar shared a dais with acting Chairman of the Bihar Legislative Council who tested positive for Coronavirus, test results of the CM has come negative. Fourteen other staffers of the CMO also tested negative for COVID-19 on Saturday, while one tested positive.

"Out of the 16 samples, the chief minister and 14 staffers of CMO have tested negative for COVID-19 while one staffer has been found positive in the test," a source at IGIMS said.

Bihar CM Nitish was tested for COVID-19 after acting Chairman of the Bihar Legislative Council Awadhesh Narayan Singh, His wife, two sons, and daughter-in-law tested positive for the virus. On July 1, Singh administered the oath of office to nine newly-elected members of the Legislative Council. CM Nitish, Deputy Chief Minister Sushil Kumar Modi, and a host of other political leaders and officials were present at the oath-taking ceremony.

In the picture tweeted by CM Kumar, Awadhesh Narayan Singh can be seen right next to him. 

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Singh, his wife, two sons and daughter-in-law had undergone COVID-19 test after they had fever, a team of the Indira Gandhi Institute of Medical Sciences collected their samples on Friday. Awadhesh Narayan Singh, his wife, elder son, and personal assistant were admitted to the isolation ward of AIIMS-Patna for treatment after his test report came in, while younger son and daughter-in-law are in home isolation. Singh and all his family members

Singh is the fifth legislator in the state to have tested positive for COVID-19. Earlier, Minister Vinod Kumar Singh and his wife have tested positive, BJP MLA Jibesh Kumar Mishra, Congress MLA Anand Shankar Singh and RJD MLA Shahnawaz Alam had also tested positive. Veteran RJD leader Raghuvansh Prasad Singh, a former Union minister, has been discharged from AIIMS after recovering from the disease. 

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Bihar COVID tally 

The COVID-19 death toll in Bihar reached 88 with four more fatalities, while 349 new infections pushed the case tally to 11,456, state health department said on Saturday. A health department release said one COVID-19 death each was reported from Patna, Bhagalpur, Kishanganj and Samastipur districts.

All 38 districts in the state have reported COVID-19 cases and the worst affected was Patna, which has the highest number of cases at 1,045, followed by Bhagalpur (568), Madhubani (497), Begusarai (476), Siwan (472), Muzaffarpur (444), Munger (396), Rohtas (370), Samastipur (368) and Katihar (355).

The state has a total of 11,456 positive Coronavirus cases. Of 11,456 cases, 8,488 persons have recovered while there are 2,880 active cases. The states recovery rate is at 74.09 percent, as per health department bulletin, and the number of samples tested, so far, is 2,51,097.

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