Punjab records 16 more COVID-19 deaths, 628 fresh cases

With 628 fresh COVID-19 cases in Punjab, the infection tally in the state rose to 1,81,004 on Friday, while 16 more fatalities pushed the death toll to 5,814, a medical bulletin said.

On Thursday, 566 COVID-19 cases were reported in the state.

Punjab is seeing an upswing in fresh coronavirus cases and is among five states which have been asked by the Centre to focus on strict surveillance, containment and RT-PCR testing to check the growing number of cases.

SBS Nagar saw a maximum 89 fresh COVID-19 cases, Hoshiarpur 80, Ludhiana 75, Jalandhar 66, among others.

A total of 255 coronavirus patients were discharged after recovering from infection, taking the number of cured persons to 1,70,968, the bulletin said.

There are 16 critical patients who are on ventilator support, while 78 are on oxygen support, it said.

Over 27,000 samples were collected for COVID-19 testing on Friday. So far, 49,53,750 samples have been tested for coronavirus in the state, the bulletin added. PTI CHS SNE SNE