The District Committee of the CPI(M) has appealed to Collector V. Vinay Chand to increase testing, reopen COVID-19 hospitals and isolation centres and take up vaccination drives in rural areas to check the rapid spread of the second wave of the pandemic.
In a letter to the Collector on Thursday, the party’s District Committee secretary K. Lokanadham said that experts have already warned that the virus was spreading rapidly in the second wave, and called for urgent measures to contain the spread, failing which Visakhapatnam district and Andhra Pradesh might become another Maharashtra, Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh.
He noted that COVID-19 patients in the district were facing untold hardships. The test centres were confirming that the patients were ‘positive’ for COVID-19 but were refusing to admit them to hospitals till a message was received from the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR). The COVID Centre, opened at Araku Valley in the past, was now closed. The staff who had served there were not even paid their salaries, he said.
The COVID hospitals and isolation centres that functioned in the past have to be reopened to accommodate the increasing number of patients, Mr. Lokanadham said, disputing the claims of authorities that there was no shortage of beds or equipment at the hospitals. Patients waiting outside COVID hospitals due to non-availability of beds indicates the gave situation.
Mr. Lokanadham also called for creating greater awareness among the people in rural areas on the need to get vaccinated. The vaccine should be made available free of cost to all eligible persons.
