No respite from Covid infections in Chittoor

Tirupati: The country is witnessing a declining trend in the number of Covid cases for the past one-week and the same trend could also be seen in some districts in the state. However, Chittoor district is yet to record such a downward trend even after implementing more than 20 days of partial lockdown. The average number of daily cases in the district account for over 2,400 during the last 10 days while it was 2,329 cases during May so far.

After the partial lockdown came into effect from May 5, there were only six occasions in which the daily cases have fell below 2,000 with a minimum figure of 1,543 cases while the maximum number of cases was 3,185. From May 1 to 26, the district reported a huge number of 60,555 cases with 257 deaths that were reported officially in the government bulletins.

Significantly, the pilgrim city has been witnessing a steady drop in daily cases, thanks to the strict containment steps being enforced by the municipal corporation officials as well as the police department. However, the cases in rural areas have become a major concern for the official machinery where a strict vigil on the containment has to be enforced.

District Medical and Health Officer (DM&HO) Dr U Srihari told The Hans India that people should cooperate with the official machinery by imposing self-lockdowns. They should not come out of their houses unless it is urgent.

By setting up mobile vans to conduct Covid tests, the district has been conducting more than 10,000 tests daily. On Thursday, the number of tests crossed 11,000 which include RT-PCR and Rapid Antigen tests. This will naturally result in more positive cases, he felt.

Further, the rural areas are having more population where more tests are also being conducted and getting more positives. District Collector M Hari Narayanan has issued clear guidelines that any private hospital or RMP doctor should send suspected cases to government testing centres and should not treat on their own as it will spread the virus further.

In this backdrop, four Ministers K Narayana Swamy, Peddireddi Ramachandra Reddy, Alla Kali Krishna Srinivas and Mekapati Gowtham Reddy will be reviewing the Covid containment steps in the district at SV Veterinary University Auditorium on Saturday. It has to be seen whether the meeting will come out with more stringent steps to contain the virus spread.