In Uttar Pradesh, a significant decline in the spread of COVID infection is being registered throughout the state. After more than a month, the number of newly infected patients in a day has come down below 20 thousand. New cases in many major cities are also on the decline. <br />''<br />''AIR Correspondent reports, as per the data released by government, around 18 thousand new COVID patients have been found in the state in the last 24 hours while more than 26 thousand patients have recovered from the viral infection. The situation is improving in major cities like Lucknow, Varanasi, Ghaziabad and Kanpur also. In state capital Lucknow, after more than 40 days the number of newly infected patients came down below 1,000 while more than 3,100 patients recovered in this period. Recovery rate has increased to 85.7 per cent while positivity rate is around 3.6 per cent.<br />''<br />''<span style="color: #222222;">Meanwhile, the State Government is continuously conducting surveys in the villages of the state to identify the symptomatic patients of COVID infection.  More than four lakh such patients have been identified and their tests were conducted.</span><br />