About 45 days after detecting the first COVID-19 positive case, the State on Saturday breached the 1,000-mark by reporting 61 fresh cases and two more deaths in the past 24 hours.
The positive cases tally has gone up to 1,016 and toll mounted to 31 with one death each in Krishna and Kurnool districts.
Srikakulam district has for the first time reported three cases and Krishna district, which is worst affected after Kurnool and Guntur, is continuing to report more number of cases. On Saturday, it reported 25 fresh cases, highest among districts. It is followed by Kurnool with 14 cases and Anantapur five; while Kadapa and Nellore reported four cases each and East Godavari, Guntur and Srikakulam reported three cases each.
Meanwhile, 26 patients — 11 from Prakasam, four each from East Godavari and Krishna, three from Kurnool and two each from Anantapur and Nellore — recovered and were discharged.
For the 1,016 cases detected up to now, the death rate has been 3.05% and recovery rate has been 16.8%. As many as 814 active patients are under treatment at State and district COVID hospitals.
As many as 6,928 samples were tested in the past day and so far 61,266 samples were tested taking the tests per million population to 1147.
As of Saturday, Kurnool’s tally has gone upto 275 and Guntur reported a total of 209 cases. They are followed by Krishna (127), Chittoor (73), Nellore (72), Kadapa (55), Prakasam (53), Anantapur (51), West Godavari (39), East Godavari (37), Visakhapatnam (22) and Srikakulam (3).
Vizianagaram has been the only district with no positive cases and Kurnool, Guntur and Krishna account to 60% of the total cases.
Rate of positivity
Meanwhile, addressing a press conference Special Chief Secretary (Health) K.S. Jawahar Reddy said that the rate of positivity in the State was only 1.66 which was low compared several other States given the huge number of tests being conducted in Andhra Pradesh.
Further the number of clusters had gone up to 196 and 122 of them are urban clusters, he said.
Mr. Reddy said 1,174 healthcare personnel had been recruited and 1,430 NCC cadets, 3,129 doctors, 1,500 paramedics, dentists and others and 602 pharmacists came forward to offer their services voluntarily.
