Telangana High Court on Thursday sought to know what steps had the State government taken to keep a tab on incidence of COVID-19 in the recently opened schools and colleges.
Observing that these places witness huge gatherings in classes and students would be appearing for exams in coming days, a bench of Chief Justice Hima Kohli and Justice B. Vijaysen Reddy said that it was imperative that the State focused on this aspect. “We keep hearing that second wave of coronavirus had hit many countries and we don’t want our State to go that way,” the bench noted.
The bench wanted to know what measures the State government had initiated to screen passengers entering Telangana from neighbouring States of Maharashtra and Karnataka which witnessed a spike in COVID-19 cases. Those entering the State through bus stations, railway stations and airport were having the potential to spread the virus.
People thronging commercial establishments, workers at construction sites and others were more susceptible to contracting COVID-19, the bench said. Such people should be screened and medical aid should be extended to them. Advocate General B.S. Prasad informed the bench that 300 mobile vans were deployed at different places to conduct COVID-19 tests. Standard Operating Procedures were issued to authorities to screen passengers arriving at bus and railway stations and at the airport. Passengers arriving from United Kingdom, which witnessed second strain of coronavirus, were being monitored closely.
The bench instructed the AG to file a fresh status report by April 6 with details of RTPCR and Rapid Antigen tests in all 33 districts of the State. It remarked that the present average number of RTPCR tests was not up to the mark. It suggested to the government to conduct more RTPCR tests. The bench expressed concern over the government conducting lesser diagnostic tests in the State despite High Court orders. While the court wanted 50,000 tests a day on an average, the government had done less than 20,000 tests a day.
