The district recorded fewer than 350 COVID-19 cases for the third consecutive day on Tuesday, with Collector V. Vinay Chand saying that these are indications of the pandemic curve flattening in the district.
“Since June 1, the district has been seeing a sharp decline in cases, which was witnessing a daily average of over 2,000 cases in May. We are expecting a sharper decline in cases,” Mr. Vinay Chand told The Hindu . “As of now, the positivity rate, which soared above 25%, is around 5-6% and we are expecting it to drop to 1% by June 20,” he added.
Meanwhile, over 10,000 people are being tested every day.“In the district, we are currently operating around 160 testing centres, including 36 in the Agency, 47 in rural, 72 in GVMC limits and six in Narsipatnam and Yelamanchili,” said Mr. Vinay Chand.
As part of the focussed testing, the district administration has reportedly scaled up testing in areas where positivity has been high.
“The goal is to test and isolate all who are being identified through the fever survey, those who are symptomatic and contacts of all those who have tested positive or have died due to COVID. While in rural and Agency areas the testing is being done through rapid antigen, RT-PCR is being used in urban areas. The testing is followed by a closely-monitored isolation process,” he said.
While a large number of hospitals have been de-notified, the district is still maintaining 3,400 oxygenated beds with 800 ICU beds.
Black fungus
To tackle black fungus cases, the district administration has identified 1,000 beds, including 500 in the private sector. The entire ENT hospital with 150 beds has been earmarked for black fungus cases, said Mr. Vinay Chand.
Meanwhile, in the last 24 hours, the district recorded 339 fresh COVID-19 infections, taking the total cases to 1,46,137. The district also recorded four deaths, taking the total death toll to 992.
During the same period, 686 persons who were earlier infected by the virus and were under treatment at various hospitals, COVID Care Centres and at homes, have recovered, taking the recoveries to 1,39,945. Active cases have further dropped to 5,200.
