VISAKHAPATNAM: Of the 15,001 village or ward secretariats in Andhra Pradesh, 8,249 secretariats have no single Covid-19 active case as of August 1.
There is one active case each in 2,983 secretariats, two active cases in 1,461 secretariats and three active cases in about 820 secretariats.
The health department has focussed on the secretariats having a higher number of active cases.
For instance, 188 secretariats have at least 10 active cases. Similarly, there are at least 20 active cases in 21 secretariats. Only four secretariats have more than 30 active cases.
Corresponding with its cumulative case numbers, East Godavari has 82 secretariats with more than 10 active cases, the highest for any district in the state, followed by Krishna (41) and Prakasam (34).
Districts like Anantapur, Kurnool and Vizianagaram, which have already achieved about 99% recovery rate, have no single secretariat with more than 10 active cases.
When it comes to the urban local bodies of the state, Visakhapatnam, the largest municipal corporation of the state both in terms of area and population, has 600 active cases. Vijayawada has stood in the second place with 423 active cases.
Kakinada and Rajahmundry cities from the disease epicentre East Godavari jointly account for 630 active cases.
Ongole has 287 active cases.
The Andhra Pradesh health department is closely monitoring the secretariat-wise infection numbers, active cases and deaths to formulate localised, region-specific interventions.
About 4 lakh volunteers and other field-level staff are operating from these secretariats.
For the uninitiated, each volunteer is serving 50 households, extending all the government service and benefits at the doorstep of the beneficiaries. This large ground network has come in handy during the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic for the health department to conduct fever surveys, track foreign returnees, identify symptomatic cases and assist them in getting the required medical services, monitor the home isolation patients, inform the public about vaccination centres and schedules, etc.
