Tirupati: Collector Dr N Bharat Gupta said Woman, child test positive for Coronavirus

Tirupati: Tablighi Jamaat Markaz fears still haunts the district as two more cases are tested positive on Monday. The latest two cases are the family members of one Jamaat returnee, who is under quarantine now.

District Collector Dr N Bharat Gupta has said that while the Jamaat returnee was tested negative for coronavirus earlier, his wife (29) and daughter (9) have been tested positive on Monday.

Speaking at Srikalahsti, the Collector said that as both mother and daughter are in quarantine, the chances of infecting others may not arise or it may confine to quarantine centre only.

However, he said the swabs of Jamat returnee which was tested negative earlier along with his relatives, will be tested again. With these two cases total number of Covid positives in Srikalahasti have reached five while district tally has gone up to 23 in which one patient from Srikalahasti was discharged so far.

The Collector also announced that the Red zone restrictions will continue in Srikalahasti for another 28 days during which even pushcarts will not be allowed and the essentials will be door delivered.

He sought complete cooperation from public as the total town is in Red zone. Spraying of disinfectant and other activities are in full swing in the town. DM&HO Dr M Penchalaiah was also present with the Collector.

The worrying factor was that still 221 reports are awaited from VRD lab in SVIMS which has been testing around 300 samples a day. It is learnt that as the virus spread is more in Kurnool and Nellore compared to Chittoor district, more samples from those districts are being tested.

With the government has been making arrangements to increase the test centres which may come into existence soon, the load on VRD lab may get reduced. Moreover, now it takes more time for testing in the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) technique.

Testing with Truenat machines will also be started in a couple of days following which reports may come very soon. It has to be seen how many positives will come in when more results are out.