Health, Medical and Family Welfare Department Principal Secretary K.S. Jawahar Reddy said that the incidence of COVID-19 infections has been coming down gradually in the State and the decreasing positivity rate and increasing testing is a good sign.
At a press conference here on Monday, Mr. Jawahar Reddy said however infections were being reported in new areas in rural mandals and district collectors were asked to focus on sub-district-level management to contain the spread.
He said that the State’s COVID-19 reproduction rate came down to 0.94 and three districts – Kadapa, Krishna and Visakhapatnam - had more than 1 reproduction rate.
Doubling rate
The doubling rate of the cases in the State was 72.7 days and among districts, Kurnool had the longest doubling rate of 181 days while Anantapur had 92 days. However, West Godavari (52 days), Prakasam (51 days) and Krishna (51 days) had shorter doubling rate.
Mr. Jawahar Reddy presented comparisons of the situation in the past fortnight with the first fortnight of the month and that of the past week and the corresponding week last month.
Falling trend
He said both comparisons show a decline in the incidence of cases and positivity rate.
In the last fortnight (Sept. 13 to 26) 1.08 lakh cases were reported against 1.42 lakh in the previous fortnight (Aug. 30 to Sept. 12). Similarly, the number of deaths and positivity rate also came down, he said.
In a similar trend, 70,816 samples were tested in the past week (Sept. 19 to 26) and 57,587 in the corresponding week last month (Aug. 19 to 26). There was a decrease in average cases per day from 9,636 to 7,235 and positivity rate from 16.73% to 10.22%, he said.
Mr. Jawahar said that 60% of the cases reported in the past week were from rural areas as also 58% of the deaths. The number of clusters increased by 540 in the past week in addition to the existing 4,060, he added.
The State’s capacity of RTPCR testing would be increased to about 50,000 in a week from existing 35,000.
Action against hospitals
He said people could complain to the government by dialling 104 against the hospitals charging more than prescribed amount for treatment. So far 26 hospitals faced action. COVID-19 treatment permissions for 17 hospitals in East Godavari, three each in West Godavari and Kurnool, two in Nellore and one in Krishna were revoked following complaints, he said.