COVID-19 death toll reaches 20 in Bihar; tally soars to 3,565 with 206 fresh cases

With a West Bengal's migrant worker testing positive for coronavirus infection, days after his death at Samastipur near en route his home states from Mumbai, the COVID-19 death toll in Bihar reached 20 on Saturday, the state's Health Department said.

Meanwhile, with 206 people testing positive for the infection, the count of total COVID-19 cases in Bihar soared to 3,565, it added.

Samastipur Civil Surgeon R R Jha, the 35-year-old deceased happened to be a West Bengal resident, who fell severely ill on board a Shramik Special train he had boarded in Mumbai for travelling to his home state. "Because of his poor health condition, he was brought down at Samastipur station on May 26 and taken to a hospital where he died within a few hours. His sample was sent for testing and it has tested positive," Jha said.

Earlier, Patna, Vaishali, Bhojpur, Siwan and Khagaria had reported two casualties each while Munger, Begusarai, East Champaran, Sitamarhi, Saran, Nalanda, Rohtas, Jehanabad and Bhagalpur had reported one COVID-19 death each.

In nearly half of the total cases of COVID-19 casualties, the samples were found positive after patients' deaths. Meanwhile, the upward surge in COVID-19 cases, triggered by the continuing return of migrant workers to the state since early May, persisted.

Among the 206 people, who tested positive on Saturday, the youngest one was a one-year-old boy from Bhagalpur while the oldest one was a man, aged 86 years, from Hajipur, the district headquarters of Vaishali. Districts reporting a significant spike on the day were Sheikhpura, Begusarai, Darbhanga, Bhojpur, Siwan, Saran and Jehanabad.

Patna remains the worst-affected district with 241 cases, followed by Rohtas (205), Begusarai (199), Madhubani (190), Munger (155) and Khagaria (134). All 38 districts in the state have reported COVID-19 cases. The number of patients who have recovered after testing positive is 1,311, while 73,929 samples have been tested so far, according to a release issued by the state Health Department.

Migrants, who have been arriving by trains and other means of transport including cargo vehicles, comprise a very high proportion of COVID-19 cases in Bihar. Since May 3, 2,433 migrants have tested positive for the coronavirus and a majority of them have returned from places like Maharashtra (613), Delhi (534), Gujarat (342), Haryana (213), Uttar Pradesh (124), Rajasthan (118), Telangana (103), West Bengal (101) and Punjab (73).