For a brief while, it seemed that the coronavirus spread had slowed down in the district, but the last week’s numbers have renewed fear in the people, crushing their hopes in the bud. As per official figures, the daily average of cases remains at 800 plus, with the tally moving towards the 68,000-mark, while the deaths have crossed the 650-mark as on Saturday.
The urban areas of Tirupati and Chittoor municipal corporations hold the lion’s share of the daily cases, followed by Srikalahasti and Madanapalle municipalities. The rural side of Chittoor district, which had made news for controlling the spread, has registered over 500 cases during the last 24 hours.
The COVID task force personnel attribute the phenomenon to the “lack of cooperation” from people in both urban and rural areas. On a sidenote, the consumption of the sanitizers at the commercial outlets and at the domestic front has also come down drastically, a medical officer in Chittoor said.
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Rural areas
The resumption of passenger traffic between Chittoor district and the neighbouring States of Tamil Nadu and Karnataka is also viewed as one of the contributing factors in the recurrence of cases in the border areas. The tri-State Kuppam division, which used to record single digit cases till last month, is now witnessing a rise in cases with increasing movement of public at the border villages.
Madanapalle municipal limits, where the public movement towards Karnataka, particularly towards Bengaluru, Chikmagalur and Kolar has seen a spike, are witnessing close to one hundred cases daily. The villages of Puttur, Nagari, Varadaiahpalem, Nagalapuram and Satyavedu mandals at the eastern side bordering with Tamil Nadu have also been steadily registering double digit figure for a couple of weeks, causing concern to the officials.
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High death rate explained
District Medical and Health Officer (DMHO) M. Penchalaiah told The Hindu that the incidence of virus cases “are neither coming down, nor going up.” “The high death rate in Chittoor district is mostly due to the fact that, unlike other districts in the State, we also include those cases to the list wherein the persons are brought dead to the hospital. When such a case comes, we first take swab samples to know if they had been infected,” he said.