With the largest single-day spike of 80 cases registered on Monday, Guntur city has emerged as a hotspot for COVID-19 infection. Most residential areas are under containment and restrictions are still in place in many zones. The district recorded 244 new cases and areas in Bapatla, Piduguralla and Rentachintala have been declared as containment zones by the District Collector.
The unlock -2 phase during the month of June, has seen a spike in cases. While, cases were less than 500 during the four phases of the lockdown till May 31, they jumped to 1,500 on June 30. Now during Unlock-2 , the number of cases touched 1,847 cases.
District Collector I Samuel Ananda Kumar said that the situation is alarming and said that containment strategy would be followed in strict adherence with the State and the Central government guidelines.
Municipal Commissioner C. Anuradha said that aggressive containment strategy would be continued in areas where more than 15 cases were reported. More number of health and medical staff were being deployed to ensure that all suspects were tested and treated.
The residential areas in Brodiepet, Lakshmipuram and Amaravathi Road continued to be out of bounds. The police put up barricades and the control rooms.
“We urge people to follow basic safety precautions like use of hand sanitisers, face masks and follow social distancing protocols. We still urge people not to come out unless they have some essential work,” said the Collector.
Further, the district administration is gearing up to meet any medical emergency by scaling up the hospital bed capacity to 5,000 out of which 2,000 beds are allotted for emergencies.
The discharge rate has too gone up with 916 patients getting discharged while 930 persons are still being treated. “We urge people not to show any discrimination agaisnt affected persons . We have medical evidence pointing that the virus stays only till 5-6 hours after the death,” said the Collector.