Agra, August 20: The Agra district administration on Thursday said all monuments, except Taj Mahal and Agra's Red Fort, will reopen from September 1. All monuments in Agra, including Taj Mahal which attracts lakh of visitors annually, had been shut since March when a nationwide lockdown was announced to contain the spread of coronavirus (COVID-19). Following the outbreak of COVID-19 in the country in January, Agra in Uttar Pradesh had emerged as one of the hotspot cities. Taj Mahal Is Closed, Cricket Is On! Kids Play at World’s Best Gully Cricket Location, Mehtab Bagh, Agra! (View Pics and Video).

The Taj city has reported 28 new coronavirus cases in the past 24 hours. The total number of corona cases has reached 2,395, with 104 deaths so far. The number of active cases from 155 containment zones is 293, health officials said on Thursday. The number of cured is 1,998, indicating a healthy 83.43 per cent recovery rate. Each day the number of samples being tested is going up. So far 86,409 samples have been collected. Uttar Pradesh: Bus Hijacked With 34 Passengers on Board in Agra.

Uttar Pradesh recently breached the one lakh-mark to become the fifth most-affected state in the country. As per the data available on the Union Health Ministry's website, it has logged 1,67,510 coronavirus cases and 2,638 deaths. It is recording more than 5,000 cases per day. So far, eight ministers in the Yogi Adityanath Cabinet and several MLAs have been infected with Covid-19, of which two Ministers, Chetan Chauhan and Kamal Rani Varun, have succumbed to the virus.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Aug 20, 2020 05:31 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).