Ever-increasing Covid cases baffle Andhra Pradesh

Amaravati: Despite all efforts made by the AP government, the number of positive cases in the state does not seem to be coming under control. The number of cases in Kurnool, Guntur and Krishna district continues to increase.

According to official figures, the total number of cases has gone up to 757 in the state. Of them, 639 are active cases who are undergoing treatment. On Tuesday, 35 new cases were registered and of that 10 cases were from Kurnool, followed by nine in Guntur, six in Kadapa, four in West Godavari, three in Krishna and three in Anantapur district.

In the last 24 hours, two people reportedly died of corona taking the total number of deaths to 22. The situation in East Godavari too is not good. All roads to Rajahmundry city were closed on Tuesday as six containment buffer zones were announced. This had become necessary as six corona virus positive cases have been identified at Mangalavaripeta three days ago.

The other areas which have been blocked are Santhi Nagar, municipal colony, Naraynapuram, Vambay houses area, Ava Vambay houses colony and Veerabhadrapuram. No one is allowed to enter the city without proper permission letter.

"We will be in a position to give any advisory in sometime - a minimum of two days," he said. The ICMR Chief Scientist also said that the kits will be tested and validated by on-ground teams instead of labs as the disease is new so the testing kits need to be refined.

"We will send teams of our eight institutes in the field... they will validate the kits in the field and if it is found that there is some problem in the batches of kits received we will send that batch to the manufecturing compony for replacement."