“Mask up Telangana as the worst is yet to come,” said Director of Public Health (DPH) Dr. G. Srinivasa Rao at a press conference on Saturday, adding that COVID positive cases would further go up in the next few days.
The senior official made the statement a day after the State recorded 4,446 cases, which is the highest since the first case was detected in the State on March 2, 2020.
He cited carelessness about COVID-19 precautions in the past four months, and mutations in the virus, as the main reasons for the large number of cases.
Apart from unrestricted movement of people, a large number of people gathered at marriages or other celebrations. And political parties in the State too, were reckless as they held rallies, public meetings and other campaigning programmes in the run up to the Nagarjunasagar byelection, he said.
At the presser held at the Health campus in Koti on Saturday, Dr. Srinivasa Rao recalled Spanish flu and how similar recklessness among people led to 2-7 crore loss of lives in its second wave. Lessons have to be learnt from history, he added.
“People need to think whether they will take precautions or all of us will sacrifice our family members, ourselves,” he said, and cited examples of the US, England and Brazil, which were ‘brought to its knees’ by coronavirus.
He also urged people, at least four times, to take precautions in the coming four to six weeks. Officials and doctors too, have been anticipating a surge from May to mid-June.
