The death toll due to COVID-19 rose to 46 in Prakasam district, with a revenue official in Kandukur revenue division succumbing to the pandemic in the last 24 hours.
With this, the district has recorded 12 deaths in a week, according to a health bulletin released by the district administration.
The Mandal Revenue Officer contracted the virus while overseeing the implementation of a cluster containment strategy in the COVID-19 hotspot of Pamur, which reported 274 positive cases after some persons who returned from Chennai got infected . Poignant scenes were witnessed when the body of the officer was brought to his residence in the outskirts of the city for the last rites.
There was no reprieve for people from the viral disease as it spread to more areas in the district. As many as 269 more persons tested positive for the disease, taking the total number of cumulative confirmed cases to 3,215 in the district. Two new containment clusters were created in the district, taking the number of very active clusters to 29 and active clusters to 136. As many as 2006 persons tested negative for the disease.
Health officials were on their toes, tracing 884 primary and 1,068 secondary contacts of the newly-infected persons and isolating them to prevent the spread of the virus. The number of infected persons stood at 328 per million and the deaths at 11.50 persons per million, health officials said.
Ongole topped in the incidence of infection in the district. With 74 fresh cases, the number of cumulative confirmed cases rose to 664. Kandukur accounted for 22 new cases, followed by Chirala with 15 new cases and Vetapalem with nine cases.
Pedda Dornala, a fringe village close to Nalamalla forests, recorded nine fresh cases, taking the total number of postive cases to 36. Fresh cases came from, among other villages, Martur (12), Singarayakonda (11), Tarlapadu (7), Podili (6), Machavaram (6), Thallur (2), Jargumalli (2), Inkollu (4), Lingasamudram (4), Korisapadu, Swarna (2), Bestavaripeta (2), Kumarole (2) and Ulavapadu (2).
Expressing concern over frontline COVID-19 warriors contracting the disease, Andhra Pradesh Government Employees Welfare Association district president Vinukonda Raja Rao urged Collector P. Bhaskar to earmark 50 beds for them and set up a help-desk to attend to the needs of staff members and their families. A children’s home should be started to take care of children of the infected staff as there was no one to take care of them if their parents were hospitalised, he said.
147 new cases in Nellore
Lockdown was strictly enforced in, among other places, Nellore, Atmakur, Gudur and Podalakur, as the total number of positive cases in Nellore district rose to 3,264 with 147 more persons testing postive. A stringent lockdown will be implemented also in Sangam from Saturday in the wake of a spurt in new cases, health officials said.
Anticipating that fresh cases would go up in the next two months, Nellore Collector K.V.N. Chakradhara Babu, while interacting with nodal officers of COVID-19 care centres, said that the bed strength should be increased to 5,000 in the district. While treating asymptomatic cases in the care centres, only serious cases should be admitted to designated COVID-19 hospitals, he said.