Backward Classes Welfare Minister Malagundla Sankaranarayana formally flagged off nine i-MASQ (Intelligence Monitoring Analysis Service Quarantine) sample collection vans here on Tuesday to speed up testing of COVID swab samples.
The district accounted for 153 new cases and three deaths in the last 24 hours, taking the total number of positive cases to 2,481 cases. Of these, 1,443 patients have been discharged.
Kurnool district, which has the most number of COVID-19 cases in the State at 2,671, reported 84 new cases in the last 24 hours taking the number of active cases to 1268. The number of patients discharged in Kurnool till Monday evening stood at 1,318.
The total number of cases are only those of local origin, and do not take into account people who tested positive in the district but hail from other States and countries.
Mr. Sankaranarayana asked people on Tuesday to exercise greater caution during ‘Unlock 2.0’ and help the government contain the spread of coronavirus, and pointed out that the State was doing all it could to keep people safe and treat the COVID-19 patients.
“Andhra Pradesh is doing the maximum number of tests in the country, and Anantapur too has conducted 75,000 samples so far and has been testing at the rate of 2,000 samples per day on an average for the past one week,” said District Collector Gandham Chandrudu.
“The special vans for collection of COVID-19 samples would ramp up the testing process in the district,” said Anantapur Urban MLA Anantha Venkatarami Reddy while flagging off the vehicles at Neeru Pragathi Park in Sri Nagar Colony in the city.
“While the restrictions on movement have been relaxed, people should behave responsibly and come out of their houses only if essential and report to health workers about any symptoms, so that early testing can be done and treatment started. Testing would be done for high-risk groups and those having breathing problems or oxygen saturation less than 95% after walking for 100 yards,” Mr. Gandham Chandrudu said.
Joint Collector (VWS&D) A. Siri said that the district administration will hold a meeting with owners of accredited private medical laboratories on Wednesday for starting COVID-19 tests in Anantapur district.