Anantapur, a district with the least medical infrastructure to tackle the COVID-19 pandemic, has been lucky so far in that there did not arise a requirement for too many hospital beds even as the district remained in the top five slots in the State’s list of daily tally for a long time.
Only 16,046 out of the total 56,209 who tested positive for the virus required treatment in one of the 12 designated hospitals in the district from March 24 to September 27.
District Collector Gandham Chandrudu along with Penukonda Sub-Collector T. Nishanthi at a press conference here on Monday evening said that 9,918 asymptomatic persons or those with mild symptoms were housed in COVID Care Centres, while the majority- 30,245 persons were asked to remain in home isolation after they tested positive for the virus.
Fall in positivity rate
After testing 4.19 lakh samples till September 26, the Health Department’s temporary and permanent staff traced 6 lakh primary and secondary contacts of the positive persons and issued them notices to stay at home. The positivity rate in the district fell drastically in September with 14,625 cases (18.36%) getting reported compared to August’s number 25,557 (11.25%) with an overall positivity rate of 13.18%.
Out of 56,209 positive persons, 53,495 were discharged and 477 deaths (084%) were recorded till Sunday morning. Currently, 2,237 patients were being treated in hospitals or COVID Care Centres. From the medical records of the patients it was observed that 73% of the deaths were among those with comorbidities.
The doubling rate of positive persons, which was between 8 days to 15 days in the initial two to three months, has come down to 96 days in Anantapur and 120 days in Kurnool district. The State average, however, is still 60 days.
Hospital ratings
As regards the rating of the COVID Hospitals in the State, the Collector said some of the parameters were skewed leading to the best COVID hospital in the State - RDT Bathalapalli Hospital coming at the 12th place. The Hindu had reported on the parameters in these columns. Now a request has been sent to the State coordinating team to amend them, Mr. Gandham Chandrudu said. In the second week, going by the earlier parameters, the team on Sunday ranked Anantapur district on top again, with RDT Hospital remaining at the 12th, GGH Anantapur falling by one place to 10th and KIMS Saveera improving from 10th to 9th spot, he added.
