Two COVID-19 deaths in Karnataka and a modest number of cases reported in the southern States stood in contrast to an improved situation in Kerala on Wednesday.
Interactive map of confirmed coronavirus cases in India
The pandemic gave Andhra Pradesh more worry as 23 new cases were reported on Wednesday, taking the total to 525 including 491 active cases. The death toll was 14, a bulletin from the Health Department said.
With 122 cases, Guntur district was at the top followed by Kurnool with 110. Nine districts had less than 60 cases while Srikakulam and Vizianagaram had no case.
Of the 23 new ones, 13 were from Kurnool, four from Guntur, three from Kadapa, two from Nellore and one in Anantapur.
Nellore district had 58 cases, Krishna 45, Prakasam 42, Kadapa 36, West Godavari 31, Chittoor 23, Anantapur 21, Visakhapatnam 20 and East Godavari 17. Twenty persons have been discharged and 491 are under treatment.
In Telangana the total stood at 650, of which 514 were active, 118 had been discharged and the death toll was 18.
Kerala improves
Kerala highlighted its high recovery rate, with 218 out of 387 patients so far recovering from the disease. The State was progressing with COVID-19 testing and would expand facilities further, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan told the media.
In one week, the State had registered more cases of recovery than new positives. On Wednesday too, there was just one case of COVID-19, while the number of recoveries were seven.
The lone positive case was from Kannur, a contact of an imported case. So far, the State has reported 387 cases, of which 167 were under treatment.
Of the 387 cases, 264 are persons who came from abroad or other States; eight were foreigners who had contracted the disease and were touring the State while 114 are contacts of imported cases of infection.
The number of cases reported by districts were: Alapuzha (5), Ernakulam (21), Idukki (10), Kannur (80), Kasaragod (167), Kollam (9), Kottayam (3), Kozhikode (16), Malappuram (21), Palakkad (8), Pathanamthitta (17), Thiruvananthapuram (14), Thrissur (13) and Wayanad (3).
The number of persons under surveillance was down to 97,464, with 96,942 persons under home quarantine and 522 in isolation wards in hospitals.
Kerala had tested 16,475 persons of whom, 16,002 were negative.
Mr. Vijayan reiterated that easing restrictions of lockdown and relaxing the vigil could lead to a spurt in cases and that one had to guard against that.
He said people were illegally crossing into the State on trains coming for signal maintenance. Three such Railway employees were put in quarantine.
He pointed out that solid waste management was again becoming a patchy affair during the pandemic.
He appreciated the patience and restraint shown by people in complying with the lockdown restrictions.
The government had made special arrangements at 21 places in the districts for cancer follow-up care to avoid the hassle of travel.
Fatal Karnataka cases
Two more COVID-19 deaths were reported in Karnataka on the third consecutive day on Wednesday, taking the toll to 12.
A 65-year-old male patient, from Chikkaballapur, who was referred from a private hospital in Bengaluru to Victoria Hospital died early on Wednesday, while an 80-year-old female patient, of Hirebagewadi in Belagavi, died in hospital there. The former had tested positive for H1N1 and had Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease and sleep apnea. Wednesday also saw 19 new cases, the highest so far on a single day, taking the total number of cases to 279.
While three were in the ICU, the condition of others including a pregnant woman was stable.
Of the 19 new cases, 10 were from Mysuru including nine Nanjangud Pharma company workers. Three were from Vijayapura, two each from Bengaluru Urban, Bagalkot and one case each from Belagavi and Kalaburgi, where a one-year-old child had been infected. One of the Bagalkot cases is a policeman.
Primary and Secondary Education Minister Suresh Kumar said the department had learnt that several visitors from US, Germany, China and Japan had come to the pharma company in Nanjangud between February 4 and February 18 and could have possibly carried the infection.
“The first patient from the company developed symptoms on March 13 and tested positive on March 24. The company owner is not available for tests as he is in Delhi. We are trying to trace him there. As many as 780 samples from the pharma company have been tested and 46 have tested positive,” he said.
All primary and secondary contacts of infected persons and those with Influenza like Illness (ILI) and Severe Acute Respiratory Illness (SARI) in the State will be tested from now on. A circular in this regard has been issued, he said.
38 new cases in T.N.
Two men died in Tamil Nadu, and the State recorded 38 new cases, 34 from a single source.
On Wednesday, Tamil Nadu recorded 38 new cases of COVID-19, taking the total tally to 1,242. Two patients - aged 47 and 59 years - died in the State, while 37 more patients were discharged after treatment. Health Minister C. Vijayabaskar said a post-graduate doctor was among the 38 persons, who tested positive for COVID-19. Of the remaining, 34 patients were connected to the single source event, while three had contact history.
A 47-year-old man was admitted to the Government Stanley Medical College Hospital with severe acute respiratory illness (SARI). His sample was among 60 samples lifted from patients hospitalised with SARI, and returned positive for COVID-19. He died on Wednesday.
Another patient, a 59-year-old man, admitted to a private hospital also died. He was in a critical condition in the intensive care unit and died at 2.45 p.m., the Minister said. With this, the State has reported a total of 14 deaths.
So far, a total of 118 patients had been discharged, he said. Nine patients were sick. A total of 1,876 persons were admitted to isolation facilities in hospitals.
Nagapattinam and Tiruvallur districts had seven cases each, while there were six cases in Erode. Five persons from Chennai, three each in Salem and Chengalpattu, two in Tiruvarur, and one each from Tenkasi, Thanjavur, Theni, Tirunelveli, Vellore reported positive.
The Minister said: “So far, we have tested a total of 21,994 samples. We have tested a total of 17,835 individuals. Today, we have lifted 2,739 samples,” he said.
He said Tamil Nadu got approval for one more testing facility at PSG, Coimbatore. With this, the State has 26 testing facilities - 16 in government and 10 in the private sector. The Minister said that additional manpower was posted in three shifts in all government testing facilities. “Each laboratory has a capacity of 270 per day. The capacity of private laboratories is 100. Taking all 26 labs into account, we can test up to 5,320 persons a day using the RT-PCR kits,” he said.
An order for 1.35 lakh RT PCR kits was placed, and the current stock position was one lakh kits. In addition, the State had received 20,000 kits from the Indian Council of Medical Research, he said.
He said that healthcare workers were carrying out door-to-door checks in containment zones and persons with Influenza-Like Illness (ILI) were also being tested. “Persons with ILI and SARI are testing negative for COVID-19. There is no community spread in the State,” Dr. Vijayabaskar said.
There are 558 containment sectors in 34 districts where surveillance measures were continuing. “Wherever we get positive cases, a 7 km-kilometre radius is demarcated. Here, we screen all family members, primary and secondary contacts,” he said.
He said the Centre was declaring districts with more than 15 COVID-19 positive cases as hotspots.
Responding to DMK president M.K. Stalin’s view that the State should have taken more precautionary measures, the Minister said the State prepared early and had sanctioned funds to the tune of ₹146 crore to procure the required drugs. The State also made a bulk purchase of N95 masks, Personal Protective Equipment and triple layer masks after sanctioning ₹204 crore.
“There is an uninterrupted supply of triple layer masks, PPE and N95 masks for doctors. Our daily requirement of triple layer masks is 80,000 to one lakh but we have ensured a supply of two to three lakhs triple layer masks per day. We are supplying 15,000 PPEs and 20,000 N95 masks every day,” he said.
Noting that patients were given symptomatic treatment, he said the State had procured required drugs such as paracetamol and hydroxychloroquine, and IV fluids. “We have adequate stock of medications to treat 1.5 lakh persons,” he said.
In Thanjavur, a pregnant woman, who tested positive for COVID-19, delivered a boy through a caesarean section. The baby has tested negative for COVID-19 and was fed breast milk from the hospital’s breast milk bank, he said.
