Aiming to flatten the COVID-19 curve, the district administration had launched an intensive and focussed testing drive on Tuesday.
On the first day (Tuesday to Wednesday) the testing drive yielded the largest spike in the district with 1,049 positive cases and as per health officials, the count on the second day has exceeded 600 cases. And significantly, a majority of the cases were recorded from GVMC limits.
The district has received around 10,000 rapid antigen kits and emphasis is being laid on testing all high-risk persons in the very active clusters.
“We have about 107 very active clusters in the district and the focus is on testing all high-risk persons on a priority basis in these clusters,” said Collector V. Vinay Chand.
It is learnt that another set of rapid antigen kits are on their way to the city and the drive will continue for the next one week. So far, from the first batch, 8,000 tests have been conducted in the first two days and over 1,600 have tested positive.
The district administration aims to conduct 20,000 to 30,000 tests in the next few day and sources in the health department say that the district is going to witness even larger spikes in coming days.
“The bright side is that we are covering a large chunk of suspect cases in the very active and active clusters. Once tested and treated, we are expecting to see a decline in cases,” said District COVID-19 Special Officer and Principal of Andhra Medical College Dr. P.V. Sudhakar.
Community spread
The spike indicates that the community spread is at its peak, as out of 8,000 tests conducted in the last two days, over 1,600 tested positive. This indicates that about 20% of the population in containment zones have been affected.
“This was predicted by ICMR and we are heading towards it. The best way to contain and control is by using the 3T strategy (trace-test-treat),” said Dr. Sudhakar.
The death rate is low, at around 1.2 %, as the district has recorded 57 deaths till Wednesday night, he added.