By Our Reporter Although the number of daily new COVID-19 cases has remained between 2000 to 3000 for the past weeks, the fatalities have been high—over 35 every day. The less number of daily cases is attributed to a lesser number of tests as many people in the rural areas hesitate to undergo tests even after showing symptoms of the virus. Again, the government has miserably failed to make contact testing effective and many infected people are living in the community spreading the disease to others. Moreover, people in the rural areas and Terai hardly follow the safety measures, as a result, the cases are increasing with more deaths. Ilam is an example, where COVID-19 patients are dying almost every day, but the testing has been very low. Many people with COVID-19 symptoms have been living in their houses without undergoing any tests, and when the situation becomes complicated, they rush the patients to Birtamod in Jhapa. But unfortunately, many of them die. The situation in Karnali and Sudurpaschim is also worsening. The latest MoHP data show that 19 districts across the country have over 500 active cases. Of these, districts like Kathmandu, Lalitpur, Morang, Bhaktapur, Rupandehi, Chitwan and Kavrepalanchowk, among others, have a higher number of active cases. The highest infection rate was identified in Bagmati Province followed by Gandaki Province and Province 1. The Ministry of Health and Population (MoHP) recorded 35 deaths related to COVID-19 on Tuesday. With this, the nation’s COVID-19 death toll has now reached 10,568. Likewise, the MoHP confirmed 2,525 new cases of COVID-19, of which 2,020 were detected through PCR tests and 505 through antigen tests. With this, the nationwide COVID-19 tally through PCR method reached 751,001 and that through antigen reached 80,967. Among the infected people, 302,454 were female and 448,547 were male. Of the total 14,810 tests conducted on Tuesday, 9,909 were Real-Time Polymerase Chain Reaction (RT-PCR) while 4,901 were antigen tests. According to the MoHP, 702,183 infected people have recovered from the disease. Currently, there are 38,250 active cases of COVID-19 across the nation. Of these, 3,105 are admitted to various institutional isolations and 35,145 are placed in home isolation. Of the active cases, 620 patients are receiving treatment at ICU wards of various health institutions across the nation and 170 are receiving treatment with ventilator support as of Tuesday. Likewise, 395 people mostly those who had returned from abroad, are placed in quarantine.