Hyderabad: Kurnool district in Andhra Pradesh has become a major headache to both the Central and state governments in their battle against Covid-19 cases. By Friday, Kurnool alone recorded 411 positive cases and nine deaths. The worrying point is the possibility of more cases being reported from this southern district of Andhra Pradesh. Some have called Kurnool as the “Italy of South India” for the number of cases here.
This district with substantial pockets of minority community has thrown a challenge to the Covid task force in the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) which monitors the situation in the country on a daily basis. On the advice of the MHA, the Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy led government on Friday appointed a senior IAS officer, Ajai Jain, to specially deal with the pandemic in Kurnool district.
Kurnool tops the 13 districts of Andhra Pradesh which recorded around 1,500 positive cases this weekend with 35 deaths, followed by Guntur and Krishna districts with over 300 and 240 positive cases, while all other districts with double digit numbers. “Definitely, Kurnool is a worry point to us all, we are doing our best to contain Covid here,” said Buggana Rajendranatha Reddy, Andhra Pradesh Finance Minister on Friday.
Jain, in the rank of principal secretary, rushed to Kurnool to coordinate with the district officials and police to tackle the situation there. Sources said that the Centre might send an inter-ministerial team (IMCT) to Kurnool next week to study the situation and find out the reasons for unabated positive cases, weighing on the national tally too.
One main reason for spike in Covid cases in Kurnool district is linked to the attendees of Tablighi-e-Jamaat meeting in Delhi in March. More than 120 persons who attended this event were traced by the cops with great difficulty as most of them escaped till the first week of April. Even after they were traced, it became tough for the officials to test and shift to hospitals those with positive cases.
Kurnool city and other major towns in the district like Adoni, Nandyal and Banaganipally with large pockets of minority community members, witnessed sporadic events of persons with positive cases refusing to shift to the quarantine centres and hospitals. The role of Kurnool MLA Abdul Hafeez Khan from the ruling YSR Congress, too, came in for sharp criticism.
The MLA is learnt to have sided with the locals who refused to go to the quarantine centres or the district headquarters hospital, a designated Covid centre, as some of the persons with positive cases were asymptomatic. “These patients feared that they were being forced to the hospitals so that they could be injected with the virus,” said a doctor from Kurnool preferring not to be quoted.
The ruling party MLA, instead of persuading these people to get admitted to the hospital, supported them and tried to obstruct the health officials and ambulances in their duties. A video in which the MLA forcing a hospital nurse touching the feet of the local religious leader went viral on social media. Her “crime” was to comment that the Tablighi returnees accounted for a majority of Covid cases.
Even after shifting around 2,200 suspected persons along with the first and second contacts of those with positive cases to quarantine centre in Kurnool, the officials couldn’t enforce strict social distancing norms inside, as the inmates insisted on offering mass prayers during the Ramzan season that began on 25 March.
“There is no social distancing inside the quarantine and most of them demand and get their home food as the local MLA intervenes frequently. As a result, the number of positive cases is going up day by day,” said the health official. Now that Jain is supervising the situation, the officials expect the situation to be better with stricter implementation of the lockdown.Chief Minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy on Friday ordered for special focus on Kurnool and asked officials to see that the lockdown is strictly implemented, amid estimates that the number of positive cases in Kurnool might touch 2,000 by May end.
Now, Kurnool has become the focal point of the state’s Covid strategy. Finance Minister Buggana Rajendranatha Reddy, who represents Dhone assembly constituency in the district, however, says that Kurnool would soon come under control, thanks to intense measures from the government. “More cases are reported from here because our testing rates are high. For every 10 lakh population, we tested 1,771, which is well above the national average. Our positive cases rate is just around 1.5% which again is well below the national average. Our only problem areas are Kurnool, Guntur and Krishna districts and we will control them too soon,” he said.
Kurnool tops the 13 districts of Andhra Pradesh which recorded around 1,500 positive cases this weekend with 35 deaths, followed by Guntur and Krishna districts with over 300 and 240 positive cases, while all other districts with double digit numbers. “Definitely, Kurnool is a worry point to us all, we are doing our best to contain Covid here,” said Buggana Rajendranatha Reddy, Andhra Pradesh Finance Minister on Friday.
Jain, in the rank of principal secretary, rushed to Kurnool to coordinate with the district officials and police to tackle the situation there. Sources said that the Centre might send an inter-ministerial team (IMCT) to Kurnool next week to study the situation and find out the reasons for unabated positive cases, weighing on the national tally too.
One main reason for spike in Covid cases in Kurnool district is linked to the attendees of Tablighi-e-Jamaat meeting in Delhi in March. More than 120 persons who attended this event were traced by the cops with great difficulty as most of them escaped till the first week of April. Even after they were traced, it became tough for the officials to test and shift to hospitals those with positive cases.
Kurnool city and other major towns in the district like Adoni, Nandyal and Banaganipally with large pockets of minority community members, witnessed sporadic events of persons with positive cases refusing to shift to the quarantine centres and hospitals. The role of Kurnool MLA Abdul Hafeez Khan from the ruling YSR Congress, too, came in for sharp criticism.
The MLA is learnt to have sided with the locals who refused to go to the quarantine centres or the district headquarters hospital, a designated Covid centre, as some of the persons with positive cases were asymptomatic. “These patients feared that they were being forced to the hospitals so that they could be injected with the virus,” said a doctor from Kurnool preferring not to be quoted.
The ruling party MLA, instead of persuading these people to get admitted to the hospital, supported them and tried to obstruct the health officials and ambulances in their duties. A video in which the MLA forcing a hospital nurse touching the feet of the local religious leader went viral on social media. Her “crime” was to comment that the Tablighi returnees accounted for a majority of Covid cases.
Even after shifting around 2,200 suspected persons along with the first and second contacts of those with positive cases to quarantine centre in Kurnool, the officials couldn’t enforce strict social distancing norms inside, as the inmates insisted on offering mass prayers during the Ramzan season that began on 25 March.
“There is no social distancing inside the quarantine and most of them demand and get their home food as the local MLA intervenes frequently. As a result, the number of positive cases is going up day by day,” said the health official. Now that Jain is supervising the situation, the officials expect the situation to be better with stricter implementation of the lockdown.Chief Minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy on Friday ordered for special focus on Kurnool and asked officials to see that the lockdown is strictly implemented, amid estimates that the number of positive cases in Kurnool might touch 2,000 by May end.
Now, Kurnool has become the focal point of the state’s Covid strategy. Finance Minister Buggana Rajendranatha Reddy, who represents Dhone assembly constituency in the district, however, says that Kurnool would soon come under control, thanks to intense measures from the government. “More cases are reported from here because our testing rates are high. For every 10 lakh population, we tested 1,771, which is well above the national average. Our positive cases rate is just around 1.5% which again is well below the national average. Our only problem areas are Kurnool, Guntur and Krishna districts and we will control them too soon,” he said.
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