It was not at all a happy Sunday for denizens of Chittoor district, as the sudden spike in the COVID-19 positive cases took the tally to 17, from 10 on Saturday.
While the western mandal remained stable with three cases registered last week, the officials were on toes in the eastern mandals as all the fresh cases of seven on Sunday emerged from here, with Tirupati at 3, Renigunta 1, Nagari 2 and Nindra 1.
District Medical and Health Officer M. Penchalaiah said all the seven new positive cases in the district had links with the Tablighi Jammat event held in mid-March in New Delhi. As many as 30 persons, family members of the positive cases and those who had been in close contact with them, were shifted to Tirupati for quarantine, while the positive cases were shifted to isolation wards.
Emergency meeting
Meanwhile, Andhra Pradesh Industrial Infrastructure Corporation (APIIC) chairman and local MLA R.K. Roja and COVID-19 Task Force special officer P. Ravi Raju conducted an emergency meeting with medical and paramedical staff and ward volunteers.
“Ten wards in Nagari and several localities in Nindra mandal headquarters have been declared red zones. We request everyone to stay indoors and maintain social distancing. A 290-member COVID-19 action team will conduct a door-to-door survey to identify symptomatic individuals. The entire tumult zone will be sprayed with disinfectants,” said Ms. Roja, appealing to all Jamaat attendees and their family members to voluntarily come for tests.
Mad rush
On a side note, even as news of the fresh positive cases trickled in, many in Nagari and Puttur municipalities rushed to the markets to stock up items for a week at least, in the anticipation that the areas from where the positive cases had emerged would be declared red zones.
A big commotion was also seen in Nagari Assembly Constituency, where hundreds of families depend on powerloom industries.
