There was no let-up in incidence of new COVID cases in south coastal Andhra as 16 more patients, including 11 in Nellore district and 5 in Prakasam succumbed to the disease in the last 24 hours.
With this, the combined death toll rose to 539 with Nellore accounting for 268 deaths and Prakasam district 271, a health bulletin released by the Medical and Health department said on Saturday night.
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In Prakasam district, 870 persons tested positive taking the tally to 21,425. Ongole accounted for a maximum of 267 of the fresh cases. A house surgeon was among those who got infected in Ongole.
As many as 1,538 new infections pushed up the tally to 29,782 in Nellore district while the district also saw a high number of 945 persons getting discharged from the hospitals. This was the highest-ever spike in daily tally in the district.
District Collector K.V.N. Chakaradhar Babu said the recovery rate was very good in the district. As many as 22,419 patients had been cured of the disease. Only those aged above 60 and those addicted to liquor and smoking were succumbing to the disease, he said.
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Reviewing the health situation in Nellore, Industries Minister Mekapati Goutham Reddy asked the district administration to gear up to meet a surge in cases in the next two weeks by appointing the required number of health professionals, including doctors and nurses, and increasing beds in COVID-19 hospitals.
Development work had been badly affected in the State in the last four months, he noted and said it was time to make concerted efforts to give a thrust to it. Nellore should figure in the top three developed districts, he said.
Taking into account the spike in fresh cases at an average rate of 1,500 cases each day, doctors in Community Health centres were trained to treat COVID-19 patients and five to 10 beds arranged in these hospitals to treat them.