Fear and anxiety continue to grip the people in Kurnool district as the number of positive cases is rising by the day. As of Monday morning, 16 new cases were recorded, taking the tally in the district to 174 with five deaths.
Out of them, the district headquarters alone has recorded 81 positive cases, followed by 39 in Nandyal town and the remaining are spread over other places in the district, as per a list given by District Collector G. Veerapandian. There are 168 more patients still undergoing treatment at various hospitals in the Kurnool district, he said.
At a press conference along with Finance Minister Buggana Rajendranath and COVID-19 Special Officer Ajay Jain, the Collector said 50% of the district was marked as red zone and under strict lockdown.
33 cases in Anantapur
In Anantapur four new cases were recorded pushing the total number of positive cases up to 33. There are three deaths and two persons were discharged after treatment. Currently 28 persons are undergoing treatment at two COVID-19 hospitals.
While the majority of positive cases were confined to Hindupur and Anantapur city so far, the last five positive cases recorded were from Guntakal, Kalyandurg and Hindupur. Three cases in Hindupur were of workers from Gujarat.
Meanwhile, in Kurnool district, a Venereal Disease Research Laboratory test (VDRL) demonstration is in progress and once the laboratory gets ICMR approval, it will start functioning giving a boost to the sample testing capacity, District Collector G. Veerapandian said.
The capacity of testing was being increased by the day and from 50 samples a few days ago, it has reached 500 now and with the rapid testing kits also arriving, the number of samples to be collected per day would be increased to 1,000, he added.
