VIJAYAWADA: Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy on Monday directed the officials concerned to initiate measures adhering to the guidelines issued by the Ministry of Home Affairs for the safe return of Andra people in other States.
Officials said preference was being given to migrant workers, pilgrims, students and groups of people, after scrutinising their online application and enquiring with the officials of the States where they are stranded as to whether they are in the green zone or red zone. The officials were directed to focus on setting up quarantine centres in the village secretariats so that people coming from other States can be accommodated and tested.
Officials informed the Chief Minister that as on date, 11 VRDL labs were functioning in the State and on a periodical basis, three labs were being fumigated. The number of TruNAT machines at 45 centres in the State has also increased to 345 with the addition of another 100. Officials said they were making efforts to increase the number of RT PCR (testing machines in laboratories). At present, there are 22 machines and the government was planning to have four machines per district, that is 52 machines.
When the officials informed the Chief Minister that tests for all the 32,792 people identified with Covid symptoms during the door-to-door family survey would be completed by Tuesday, Jagan asked them to ensure that all protocols are followed in the hospitals located in red zones. He also stressed the need for strengthening the Telemedicine facility and said all the related call centre numbers along with Disha, ACB, agriculture should be displayed at village/ward secretariats.
553 recovered so far
The number of cured COVID-19 cases in Andhra Pradesh touched 553 on Monday with 36 patients discharged on their recovery till morning and another 29 in Kurnool by evening. Among the 65 discharged, 38 are from Kurnool, eight each from Chittoor and Prakasa, six from Nellore, three from West Godavari, and two from East Godavari districts.
With another 67 people tested positive till Monday morning in last 24 hours, coronavirus count in the State increased to 1,650.No casualties were reported in the last 24 hours and the number of active cases as on date stands at 1,064, said the media bulletin issued by the State Command Control Room (Health) .
Out of 67 new cases, 25 were registered in Kurnool district alone. With this, Covid count in the hotbed went up to 491. Nineteen cases were reported in Guntur district, taking its tally to 338. In Krishna district, 12 more cases were reported and now it has 278 cases. Six more cases were reported in Visakhapatnam, taking its aggregate to 35, while four new cases in Kadapa district took its count to 87. One more case was reported in the Chittoor district, which now has 82 cases.Positivity rate in AP is 1.32% against the national average of 3.84%, while the mortality rate is 2%, way better than the national average of 3.27 per cent.
