A day after 66 students tested COVID-19 positive at the hostels in the Andhra University College of Engineering (AUCoE), the district administration has declared the entire area as a containment zone. Barricades have been set up and adequate police force deployed to maintain the sanctity of the zone.
However, District Collector V. Vinay Chand, after reviewing the situation, said there was no need to panic, as AU was a stray single incident and does not have the indication of the much talked of ‘second wave’. He also confirmed that all the cases were asymptomatic.
AUCoE has around 1,300 hostellers and 900 were tested till Saturday morning and 66 had tested positive.
There are eight hostel blocks assigned for boys and out of that three have been declared as isolation wards, and the students who have tested positive are being housed there. “Each block has about 100 rooms, we have accommodated all the 66 in one block, by assigning one room per head, and two blocks have been kept as reserve,” said Mr. Vinay Chand.
The remaining five have been declared as a quarantine facility and all those who have tested negative or are yet to be tested have been quarantined in those blocks. “They will go through the mandatory 14-day quarantine period and will undergo the two required tests and only then they will be discharged,” he said.
A 24/7 medical camp with four doctors and 30 ANMs has been established and the students are being given special diet and home isolations kits with basic immune boosting medicines. The affected students are being monitored regularly with a pulse oximeter to check their blood saturation levels. “In case there is a drop, they will be moved to a hospital,” he said.
Keeping the surge in cases in the last few days in view, the district administration has readied 1,000 beds in the CSR block of KGH and at VIMS.
The AUCoE also has a girls’ hostel with four blocks. While one has been declared as an isolation ward, the other three will act as a quarantine facility. “But fortunately, till Saturday afternoon, none of the girls tested positive,” said Mr. Vinay Chand.
Meanwhile, the AU officials, under instructions from the district administration, have begun contacting the 4,000-odd day students in the engineering college.
Mr. Vinay Chand told The Hindu that the next focus will be on science and humanities hostels, which have already been barricaded. Testing will be completed in a day or two and similar steps will be taken, if required.
Testing ramped up
Though there has been a surge in cases, as around 700 were recorded in the last one week, the District Collector said it was too early to predict that the second wave is on.
The rise in infections is mainly due to non-adherence to COVID-appropriate behaviour such as not wearing masks, sanitising hands and not following the social distancing norms. “But if it continues and we see a further rise, as in July and August of last year, then we can say that the second wave has come,” he said.
Meanwhile, the district administration has ramped up testing and on random basis close to 6,500 tests are being organised daily.
“We have gone back to the old formula of test-track-treat. Combined with the vaccination process, we should soon see a decline,” said Mr. Vinay Chand.
7.5 lakh to be vaccinated
The district administration has already embarked on a vaccination drive and in the next 15 days it aims to vaccinate close to 7.5 lakh people. Already, about two lakh have taken the jab and the district administration is now targeting those above 45 years, whether they have comorbidities or not.
“Already we have received requests from some organisations such as APSRTC and some CPSUs to take up vaccination drives,” Mr. Vinay Chand said.
