Uneasy calm prevailed in several parts of Chittoor district on Saturday, with emergence of 150 fresh COVID-19 positive cases in the last 24 hours, with the total number of cases crossing the 800-mark, which included five deaths.
The sudden spurt of record number cases has kept the official machinery on its toes, with COVID-19 task force personnel undertaking disinfecting works at residential areas, shifting the positive cases to COVID hospitals at Tirupati and Chittoor, and suspect cases to quarantine facilities at their respective mandals.
Majority of the fresh cases were reported from Tirupati, Puttur, Karveti Nagaram, Renigunta and B. Kotha Kota. The other mandals included Chittoor, Piler, Nindra, Nagari, Pichatur, Yerpedu and Srikalahasti.
Kuppam seees first case
The first case of COVID-19 was reported in Kuppam mandal on Saturday. A youth who had come from Tamil Nadu tested positive after his neighbours complained about his presence. In Puttur, five cases with travel history from Chennai were shifted to COVID hospital at Tirupati. The cases included two infants below the age of one year, with travel history to Vijayawada and Chennai. At Peddapanjani mandal, a youth tested positive was a returnee from Chennai.
In Puttur, lockdown is in place from 11 a.m. onwards, after the town witnessed close to 30 cases in a week, and one death. Puthalapattu town, and constituency headquarters on Chittoor-Bengaluru national highway too witnessed positive cases, leading to declaration of containment zone. New red zones were formed in Chittoor city, after three new cases surfaced on Saturday.
Mobile labs
Meanwhile, District Collector Narayana Bharat Gupta, who conducted inspections at the COVID ospitals in Tirupati, told the media that three vehicles (intelligent Monitoring Analysis Services Quarantine – COVID-19) were kept at the disposal of the District Medical and Health Officer in Chittoor in view of the heavy vehicular and public movement across the borders of Chittoor with Tamil Nadu.
District Medical and Health Officer P. Penchalaiah said the three vehicles would be deployed at the border check posts with Tamil Nadu. Both regular and random checks would be conducted among public entering the district from Tamil Nadu.
The specially designed buses were equipped with COVID-19 test facilities and the results too would be recorded in few minutes after testing. The official said that the medical and paramedical staff were put on alert in all mandals, which had been recording steady number of positive cases, to identify cases based on their travel history.
Apart from the area hospitals, the swab test facilities were made available at the primary health centers also, he said.
