There was no let-up in fresh cases in South Coastal Andhra Pradesh as 506 persons, 276 in Nellore and 230 in Prakasam, tested positive for the disease on Wednesday taking the coronavirus case count to over 1.3 lakh in the two districts.
With four new deaths, the toll rose to 529 in SPSR District and one death in Prakasam pushed up the toll to 590. Hospitals treating COVID-19 patients overflowed with patients as the number of fresh cases outnumbered the number of recovered persons by over 250. As many as 248 patients returned home on recovery in a span of 24 hours.
‘Tika Utsav’, which was lacklustre in the first three days due to depletion of vaccine stocks, got a shot in the arm on Wednesday thanks to replenishment of Covaxin and Covishield vaccines by the Centre to combat the pandemic.
The village and ward secretariats were a beehive of activity as health professionals worked overtime to make up for the loss of time and complete the massive exercise on the last day of the vaccination festival and the targeted beneficiaries started trickling in.
More than 42,000 persons were vaccinated in SPSR Nellore district and over 40,000 persons in Prakasam district on a single day when the number of active cases rapidly rose to 3,723 in the region.
“We will vaccinate another 10,000 persons by Wednesday,” Prakasam District Medical and Health Officer(DMHO) P. Ratnavalli said while overseeing the drive across 214 session sites set up across the district for the massive exercise. “We will vaccinate all the 45,000 persons planned for today'', said Nellore DMHO S.Rajyalakshmi
