The south coastal districts of Andhra Pradesh continued to reel under the pandemic as 103 patients, 62 in Nellore and 41 in Prakasam tested positive for the disease in the last 24 hours.
With this, Prakasam’s tally rose to 1,004 out of which 447 are active cases and Nellore’s to 1,070 of which 474 were active, health officials said. In a welcome sign, 103 patients--60 in Nellore district and 43 in Prakasam--were discharged from hospitals on recovery.
The lockdown was implemented strictly in Ongole and Chirala, which were declared as integrated containment clusters by the authorities.
The number of cases went up to 120 in the handloom town of Chirala with 11 fresh cases and in the district headquarters, it went up to 226 with six new cases.
Six of the newly-infected persons had returned to the district from Telangana and two each from Karnataka and Tamil Nadu. The condition of 241 patients was stable, a report compiled by the Medical and Health department said.
Meanwhile, in the neigbouring district, Nellore city accounted for a maximum of 24 fresh cases followed by Venkatagiri with nine, Chejerla with five, Kavali and Tada with four and Sitaramapuram with three.
One case each was registered in Varikondapadu, Kaligiri, Muthukur, Kodavalur, Buchreddipalem, Dakkali, Sitaramapuram. Five patients from Prakasam district and one each from Kadapa district and Hyderabad also tested positive for the disease.
Meanwhile, District Collector M.V. Seshagiri Babu along with Superintendent of Police Bhaskar Bhushan conducted a surprise visit to shopping malls in the city to assess their preparedness to ensure a safe and secure environment for the denizens.
