Corona count breaches one lakh-mark in Andhra Pradesh

VIJAYAWADA:  Andhra Pradesh’s COVID-19 tally crossed one lakh-mark on Monday with 6,051 new cases recorded in the last 24 hours ending 9 am Monday. Since the first positive case was reported in Nellore on March 12, it took more than four months — to be precise on July 20 — to cross the 50,000-mark and just seven days to reach the one lakh mark. The total number of cases now stands at 1,03,249. The silver lining, however, is 49,558 persons were discharged and the active cases on Monday stand at 51,701.

With the State government focussing on reducing deaths due to the virus, the mortality rate in the State stood at 1.06 per cent, far better than the national average of 2.28 per cent. The worrying factor, however, is the positivity rate, which stands at 6.07 per cent.This has attributed to the high number of tests being conducted in the State. With 16,86,446 tests so far, the State stands fourth among the States in the number of tests conducted. In the last 24 hours ending Monday, of the 43,127 tests, 6,051 persons tested positive. 

East Godavari district, which has been witnessing a sudden surge of positive cases in the past few days with more than 1,000 cases recorded almost daily, reported another 1,210 cases, taking its overall tally to 14,696, the highest among the 13 districts. Kurnool is in second place with 12,234 cases followed by Guntur at 10,747 and Anantapur at 10,247. Anantapur crossed the 10,000-mark on Monday with 524 fresh cases. With this, the four districts now have more than 10,000 cases. West Godavari district, with 408 new cases, has 8,820 cases.

The toll reached 1,090 with 49 more persons succumbing to the virus in the 24 hours ending Monday morning. Kurnool has the highest number of deaths so far, 164, followed by 149 in Krishna and 129 in the East Godavari district.Among the 49 deaths, nine are from West Godavari, eight from Vizag, seven each from Chittoor and East Godavari, five from Krishna, four from Vizianagaram, three from Anantapur, two each from Kurnool and Srikakulam and one each from Kadapa and Prakasam districts.

Attributing the high number of cases reported in the State to the more number of tests, Deputy CM (Health) Alla Kali Krishna Srinivas (Nani) said 50,000 COVID-19 tests per day are being conducted in AP, which is far better than the earlier 2,000 to 3,000 tests per day. The number of positive cases in the State is high since 90 per cent of the tests are being conducted on those living in and around containment clusters.

Several important towns and municipalities are under lockdown with opening of businesses restricted to limited periods. Among them are the 11 containment clusters in Vijayawada Municipal Corporation (VMC) limits, almost entire wards in Tirupati Municipal Corporation in Chittoor, Kurnool city and others.
A youngster who returned from Italy to his native place in Nellore was the foreign returnee to have tested positive on March 12. With the arrival of people from other States and countries, the cases started to increase and by the start of Unlock 1.0 on June 1, the State recorded 3,118 cases of which 446 are people from other States, while 112 are from abroad. By July 20, the number of cases shot past 50,000 and by Monday, breached the one lakh-mark.

AP stands fourth in number of tests 
With 16,86,446 tests so far, Andhra Pradesh stands fourth among the States in the number of tests conducted. In the last 24 hours ending Monday morning, of the 43,127 tests, 6,051 persons tested +ve