Rising Covid cases cause panic in Chittoor district

Tirupati: The escalating Covid-19 cases continue to pose threats to the officials and people as well. The cases have been going up every day and a record 2,945 patients got infected with the deadly virus on Sunday.

With this, the total positive cases in the district till now has gone up to 1,27,525 while the deaths have almost reached 1,000 mark.

During the last six days, the district recorded 1,982, 1,975, 1,831, 2,764, 2,768 and 2,945 cases, which reflects the gravity of the situation.

It has more than 20,000 active cases now which causes a real problem. In spite of providing more beds at different locations, patients across the district prefer to reach Tirupati to get better care which is resulting in additional burden on the existing infrastructure in the city.

Officials have been saying that they have increased the number of tests due to which the cases have been surging more. It was learnt that on Friday itself about 13,000 Covid tests were performed in the district. The positivity rate in the district is said to be around 20 per cent as of now.

Causing more concern, the virus is spreading more gradually in the western part of the district where people have returned from neighbouring Karnataka.

The people from the area go to Karnataka for livelihood and they have been returning now to their native places as that State imposed a lockdown.

The daily report released on Sunday showed that Tirupati has 418 fresh cases followed by Chittoor with 205 and Tirupati rural 98. In Western areas, Madanapalle reported 91 infections, Kurabalakota 85, Peddamandyam 40 and Mulakalacheruvu 39 apart from several other mandals.

Out of 66 mandals, 57 have reported cases between 10 and 98 while two mandals have the infections in three digits. Only seven mandals have reported single digit cases.

Meanwhile, Joint Collectors V Veerabrahmam and N Rajasekhar visited the Covid care centre located at TTD's Govindaraja Swamy choultries on Sunday and reviewed the arrangements.

The officials have been saying that the district has no shortage of oxygen supplies and all the staff members have been working round-the-clock to address the exigencies.