The number of COVID-19 cases in Telangana crossed the 10,000 mark on Wednesday with 891 more swab samples testing positive, taking the total number of cases to 10,444.

After the State government initiated ‘50,000 tests in 10 days’ from June 15 to gauge the prevalence of the disease, cases have been shooting up.

The 891 fresh cases reported on Wednesday is the highest in a day so far. It includes 719 cases from the GHMC area, 86 from Rangareddy, 55 from Medchal. Five more COVID-19 patients died on Wednesday. Of the total 10,444 cases, 5,848 are active cases, 4,361 were discharged and 225 people have died.

The first COVID suspect was a returnee from Wuhan in January. The State officials heaved a sigh of relief after his sample tested negative. Three more samples sent to NIV-Pune in the same week also tested negative.

Initially, Sir Ronald Ross Institute for Tropical and Communicable Diseases (Fever Hospital), Nallakunta, was the ground zero for COVID-19 suspects. All the samples used to be sent to Pune for testing. Permission was granted to test samples at Gandhi Hospital’s laboratory from February 7. However, samples were sent to NIV-Pune for confirmation.

Though a positive case was anticipated, all officials in the State Health department pressed the alarm when news of first case reached them on March 2.

Since the case was confirmed by NIV-Pune, the State Health department officials started to dial the number of the patient to confirm the news. The second case was detected on March 14.

The patient was admitted at Gandhi Hospital. Over a period of time, the State government’s tertiary care hospital was turned into the largest COVID Isolation Centre in the State.

Cases were in single digit till the end of March, and started to peak from April first week. The first 1,000 cases were recorded from March 2 to April 26. Cases were either in single digit or below 20 till May 8.

It started to surge from May 9. A total of 2,698 cases were detected till May-end. Partial relaxation in lockdown was announced in May and on May 27, the number of cases crossed 100 for the first time.

Officials from the State Health department said that cases were increasing as more people were coming out of their homes after the lockdown relaxations.

The lockdown ended by May 31, and Unlock 1.0 began in June. Huge surge in COVID cases were observed from the beginning of this month.

While 2,698 cases were recorded from March 2 to May 31 (91 days), a total of 7,746 cases was recorded from June 1-24 (24 days). Officials are of the opinion that the cases will continue to soar in the coming days.