Uneasy calm gripped the temple town of Srikalahasti on Monday after the COVID-19 task force officials shifted two persons, a woman and her daughter, to isolation at a Tirupati facility, as they tested positive.
The fresh cases were the family members of a local trader, who tested positive after he returned from the Tablighi Jamaat meet last month. With this, the total positive cases in Chittoor district touched 23, including a youth, a London-returnee in Srikalahasti.
With four positive cases being reported in Srikalahasti municipality, a thickly populated temple town, tension gripped the residents in various wards coming under the red zone. The current cases, which fall under the bus-stand locality, have only contributed to the uneasy atmosphere in the town.
District Collector Narayana Bharat Gupta, accompanied by senior officials, rushed to the town in the morning. The medical and paramedical personnel of Srikalahasti area hospital attended an emergency meeting at the MPDO meeting. On instructions from the Collector, the entire ward No. 15 was sanitised. Fresh samples from the neighbourhood close to the affected house were collected for testing.
Lockdown extended
Speaking to the media, Mr. Gupta said that in view of the red zones at vital junctions of Srikalahasti municipality, the lockdown would be extended till April 30.
Later, the Collector inspected the quarantine and isolation facilities for people suspected to have contracted COVID-19 and patients, at SVRR Government Hospital at Tirupati and its outskirts. He urged the duty personnel to take all care in providing nutritious food to the patients at the facilities.
Mr. Gupta said masks, PPEs and sanitisers in bulk stocks had reached the district Collectorate, and they would be despatched to the medical and paramedical staff, police and health workers at the field level.
Homam
Meanwhile, Sri Venkateswara Vedic University and Sri Venkateswara Institute of Medical Sciences (SIMVS), both administered by the Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams (TTD), jointly performed the “Sarva Vipannivaraka Rudra Homam” on the premises of Vedic University, attended by the Veda pundits and Ritwiks, as gesture of spiritual remedy to prevent the spread of teh virus.