The Chittoor district administration is gearing up to set up a facility with 3,000 beds by utilizing the services at SVRR Hospital, ESI Hospital and Old Maternity Hospital zone in Tirupati on a war-footing, said Collector Narayana Bharat Gupta.
Since the SVRR Government Hospital is now a full-fledged COVID-19 hospital, all non-COVID patients would be treated at all 15 hospitals in Tirupati that come under the Arogya Sri network.
Addressing a press conference in Tirupati on Monday, the Collector said they are fully prepared to meet any eventuality in view of the ballooning number of cases in the district. “Though there are no fresh cases for three days, it doesn’t mean that the cases have altogether stopped,” he said.
The Collector said that so far 11,000 tests had been conducted in the district, of which 240 tests were awaiting results. “TrueNAT machines are available at all area hospitals, and five more machines will be arriving soon. At SVIMS virology lab, we are conducting 600 to 700 tests every day,” he said.
‘Public is cooperative’
Referring to the alarming number of cases in Srikalahasti, Mr. Gupta said that the authorities were investigating if the town has reached the third stage. However, allaying fears, Mr. Bharat Gupta said: “We had conducted 920 rapid tests in the town and not even a single positive case was registered.”
The Collector said that the public was cooperating with the civic authorities by following the social distancing norm while availing the mobile vegetable markets at their respective areas.
Meanwhile, the police officials had mounted surveillance at all the vital junctions in Srikalahasti, which is under total lockdown since April 24.
