The city, a trading and commercial hub of the State, wore a deserted look on Sunday with residents and traders observing a 12-hour ‘janata curfew’— a voluntary lockdown — heeding the call given by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to prevent the spread of coronavirus.
People stayed indoors with commercial establishments, cinema theatres and malls downing their shutters. Temples, churches and mosques and temples were also closed. There was no activity in the busy PVK Naidu Market which houses Asia’s largest chilli yard.
As the clock struck 5, people came out of their houses, and those staying in flats stood in their balconies balconies and clapped in support of hundreds of workers engaged in sanitation work.
The APSRTC suspended its services and trains also stopped plying. Police personnel were seen urging residents to protect themselves by staying indoors. Traffic was thin on the national highway.
Last-minute purchases
The night before, people scrambled to make last-minute purchases amid speculations that a prolonged lockdown could be in place from Monday.
The district administration headed by Collector I. Samuel Ananda Kumar worked round the clock and a task force comprising the Revenue, Municipal, Health, Endowments and Police departments put in place a cluster containment plan. A control room was set up at the District Medical and Health Office. A mock drill of cluster containment plan would be executed on Monday at Syamala Nagar.
So far, the task force has identified over 250 persons with a travel history to European and East Asian countries. Three persons have been admitted to the fever hospital with flu-like symptoms but their samples tested negative for coronavirus. The authorities said that not even a single corona positive case was registered in the district.
Municipal Commissioner C. Anuradha said sanitation workers worked overnight till 7 am.
The government has already issued a GO under Sections 2, 3 and 4 of the Epidemic Diseases Act, 1897 and notified the Andhra Pradesh Epidemic Disease Covid-19 (Corona Virus Disease -2019) Regulations-2020 giving rights to the district administration to implement containment measures in order to prevent the spread of the disease.
The social distancing measures include non-pharmaceutical infection prevention and control intervention implemented to avoid/decrease contact between those who are infected with a disease causing pathogen and those who are not, so as to stop or slow down the rate and extent of disease transmission in a community leading to decrease in speed, morbidity and mortality due to the disease.
