VIJAYAWADA: Active Covid-19 cases in Andhra Pradesh dropped below the 6,000 mark to 5,910 on Sunday even as 667 were added fresh, taking the gross to 8.71 lakh. With the discharge of another 914 patients from hospitals across the state, the overall recoveries climbed to 8,59,029. At the same time, nine new casualties took the coronavirus toll to 7,033.
The latest media bulletin issued by the State Command Control Room said the state conducted 60,329 coronavirus confirmatory tests, including 13,556 rapid antigen tests, in the 24 hours ending Sunday 9 am. Contrary to Saturday—when no district reported 100 infections, the tallies in three districts grew by over 100 cases even as the remaining districts reported under 50 new positives each. The one-day surge was the highest in Krishna district (129), followed by Guntur (114) and Chittoor (105); and the lowest in Kurnool (8). East Godavari has the highest caseload of 1,22,650; West Godavari has 92,946, Chittoor 84,266 , Guntur 73,397 and Anantapur 66,862. Vizianagaram, with a total of 40,784 infections, continues to be the least affected district in the state. The lower number of active cases of 109 are in Kurnool (109), and the highest of 1,138 in Krishna.
Among the four new casualties, two were reported from Krishna district and one each were reported in Chittoor and Vizianagaram districts. Apart from Chittoor, which has reported a total of 834 Covid casualties, Krishna district (647), East Godavari (636), Anantapur (593) and Prakasam (578), too, have reported a high number of deaths due to the disease.
350 volunteer for Covaxin trials
Guntur: Close to 350 persons have volunteered for the third phase of Covaxin trials, currently underway at Guntur Fever Hospital. The clinical trial for the vaccine candidate developed by Hyderabad-based Bharat Biotech began at the hospital on November 25. Hospital officials said response from the public is huge, and that they are aiming to vaccinate 1,000 people by the end of this month