VIJAYAWADA/MACHILIPATNAM: Krishna saw a spike of 25 COVID-19 cases on Saturday, which took the total cases in the district to 693. Official sources said 22 of them were reported from Vijayawada alone, while the remaining were from Machilipatnam. Two more persons died of the virus, taking the death toll to 27 in the district.
Speaking at a task force meeting held here, Machilipatnam tahsildhar NSK Khajavali said three more positive cases of COVID-19 were reported on Saturday; two were from Hussainpalem in Machilipatnam mandal and one from Sarkarvari Thota. He suggested that the public should not go out of their houses until and unless it was important.
DWAMA project director and MPDO in-charge GV Suryanarayana said so far only the urban areas were reporting the infections, but now the virus had started transmitting to the rural areas.
"We have identified the primary and secondary contacts of the three patients and collected samples from them. Hussainpalem has been declared a containment zone and sodium hypochlorite solution is sprayed across the locality," he said, adding that instructions were given to medical teams to examine the persons in the locality.
Municipal commissioner S Siva Rama Krishna requested the residents to wear masks and maintain physical distance while going to markets or their places of work.