The district administration is getting ready to deal with any situation in the wake of coronavirus outbreak in the country by opening a 56-bed isolation block at the new Government Super Speciality Hospital and an equal number of beds at the Government General Hospital and private hospitals.
In a couple of days, the new block with 34 ventilators, 56 beds, sufficient number of doctors and paramedical staff would be ready, said District Collector Gandham Chandrudu and District Medical and Health Officer K.V.N.S. Anil Kumar at a press conference on Saturday.
The District Collector made a fervent request to stay at homes unless it was a medical emergency.
Stressing the need for learning contrasting lessons from Italy and South Korea, Mr. Gandham Chandrudu said while Italy took the COVID-19 warning very lightly, the South Korean government implemented safety measures strictly with the cooperation of the people. “While there are more than 4,000 deaths in Italy, the number of cases in South Korea were very few, though geographically they were very closeby,” he observed.
‘No positive cases’
The Anantapur district has so far recorded no COVID-19 positive case despite the district getting 547 persons travelling from the countries where the corona virus spreads. “We have been testing patients as per the laid down protocol and out of three swabs sent to NIV, Pune, all the three turned out to be negative,” said Dr. Anil Kumar.
While every person cannot be and need not be tested, a COVID-19 testing lab that would be functional in a day or two would be handy, he said.
“While 419 persons are under home isolation at present, 36 persons could not be traced. While 90 of them have completed 28 days of observation, 93 suspects are in 14 to 28 day period and 326 below 14 days of observation,” said the District Collector, adding that home-to-home surveillance was being conducted for all the 12 lakh households in the district
Meanwhile, the district administration has sounded two private hospitals in the city to block 175 beds in case the number of suspected COVID-19 cases increases in the next fortnight. While KIMS Saveera will part with 100 beds, Chandra Hospital will spare 75 beds.
