Social gatherings blamed for spike in Covid cases in Krishna

Vijayawada: Krishna district administration is gearing up to tackle the increasing Covid cases by arranging 1,000 beds for Covid patients in the district.

After drastic fall in February, the number of cases have been gradually increasing since March. The district registered 2,800 cases in December 2020, 830 cases in January and 250 cases in February 2021. But the number of cases increased to 1,600 in March and cases are on the rise in April as well. Consequently, the district administration is preparing to arrange 1,000 beds in the GGH, Vijayawada, Government hospital in Machilipatnam and six Aarogyasri network hospitals in the district.

Besides, 1,000 more beds will be arranged in the Covid centres across the district in the coming weeks. The State government is notifying some private hospitals as Covid hospitals. Capital hospitals, Time Hospital, Indo British Hospital and others changed to Covid hospitals. Besides, facilities will be provided for Covid patients in the hospitals like Nimra in Ibrahimpatnam. So far, only one Government General Hospital, Vijayawada, is available for Covid patients in the district apart from two private hospitals. Henceforth, the number of hospitals and beds will be increased.

Krishna district Collector Md Imtiaz, Joint Collector L Siva Sankar and other officials on Tuesday convened a meeting with the private hospital managements as part of the preparations to change private hospitals into Covid hospitals and discussed the measures to be taken to tackle the Covid cases.

Collector Imtiaz speaking on the occasion said the Covid is spreading fast compared to the first wave last year. He said that the district administration has noticed that more than 80 per cent of the Covid cases in the district were caused by social gathering. He said earlier, the Medical and Health Department used to identify the cases through contacts and travel history. People even without having travel history are getting infected with Covid in recent days due to participation in social gathering. He said that the district administration is following test, tracking and treatment procedure to contain the Covid and creating awareness among the people to wear masks in public places.

He said that the Covid variant is very diverse and the Medical and Health department is facing problems to tackle the cases.Wearing mask in the public places is one of the best methods to be safe from Covid infection. He once again appealed to the people to follow Covid appropriate behaviour like maintaining physical distance, sanitising hands frequently with sanitisers and wearing masks. He said that more than 80 per cent people infected with coronavirus prefer home isolation due to various reasons and awareness on how to use medicine and taking other precautions.