Andhra Pradesh like many other States has been facing a fresh threat of the spread of novel coronavirus since the third phase of the lockdown as thousands started moving back to their native places here from various parts of the country. It was during the third phase (May 4 to May 17) that inter-State movement of people (migrant workers) was allowed for the first time and a large number of them came back to the State.
The first two phases (March 24-April 14 and April 15-May 3) of the lockdown initially saw cases of a few foreign returnees, who had returned to the State before the lockdown was announced, and their primary and secondary contacts. It later witnessed a huge number of cases due to the Delhi returnees.
New challenge
In the third phase, at a time when the outbreak hotspots were identified and the rate of spread came down, the new challenge of incoming migrant workers came up before the authorities. Besides, the State began detecting the cases of infection linked to Koyambedu, a hotspot in Tamil Nadu.
Currently, as the number of cases due to migrant returnees and those related to Koyambedu continue to grow the return of people from Gulf countries further increased the infections in the fourth phase of the lockdown, May 18 to May 31.
However, except for the cases linked to Koyambedu the other cases of transmission outside the State did not contribute to the outbreak in the local population as they were quarantined and isolated immediately upon their arrival in the State.
Non-local transmission
As of Saturday, the State detected 406 cases among migrant returnees and 111 among foreign returnees. Due to Koyambedu link 226 cases were reported and all the three factors together at 743 cases accounted for at least 21% of the total 3,461 cases. All the cases were detected in the third and fourth phases of the lockdown during which a total of 1,878 cases surfaced and 39% are due to non-local transmissions.
Excluding the non-local transmission cases, there are a total of 2,944 cases and the last two phases saw only 46% cases while the first two phases saw 54%. The State government has not been owning the cases caused due to transmissions outside the State and they are being separately mentioned in the bulletins.
As the domestic flight operations resumed the State has been witnessing the return of more persons from major cities like New Delhi, Chennai and Mumbai where there is a high incidence of cases.
All those with symptoms and those coming from hotspot cities are being put under institutional quarantine for at least seven days until their samples turn negative.
