VIJAYAWADA: COVID-19 does not spread from a person who has been dead for at least 4-6 hours, Special Chief Secretary (Health) KS Jawahar Reddy said on Friday, and appealed to the public not to hinder the cremation of victims.
He further urged people to follow three rules - wear masks when going outdoors, maintain physical distance of at least 6 ft, and clean your hands often. "Though the government is working to contain the virus, people should be responsible for themselves," he asserted.
Addressing the media, he said the focus is now on reducing the mortality rate, and for this, people above the age of 60 years, and those above 40 who have comorbidities (such as high sugar and heart and lungrelated diseases), are being screened.
"The focus is on containment zones, where people in these categories will be screened, and those with symptoms and with abnormal blood sugar levels and oxygen saturation levels below 94 per cent will be tested," he said.
Stating that early detection is the key to increasing the chance of survival, the official sought for people in the high-risk categories who have symptoms to immediately get hospitalised. He further said all efforts are being taken to break the chain of transmission by testing, identifying and isolating infectees.
"As on today (Friday), 16,934 cases have been detected, of which 9,096 are active. Of them, 2,000 are being treated in Covid care centres and the rest are either in home isolation or hospitals. We encourage people who are asymptomatic or having mild symptoms to undergo home isolation if they have the facility. We will monitor them daily through the telemedicine system," he explained.
"We had eight cases on March 24, and during Lockdown-1 (March 25-April 14), 4,395 cases were reported. During Lockdown 2 (April 15 - May 3) 1,147 cases were reported, and and during Lockdown 3 (May 4 -17) and 4 (May 18 -31) the figures were 782 and 1,244 respectively. During Unlock 1 (June 1 to July 2) 13,2158 cases were reported," he said, adding that the number of cases went up as the movement of people increased.
As for the government’s strategy, he said people in every category - construction workers, agriculture workers, vegetable vendors, industrial workers, frontline workers (health), market yard workers, shopkeepers, sales assistance, fruit and vegetable vendors - are being tested at random. A total of 8,400 agriculture workers have been tested and 115 were found to be infected, with more cases reported in Gutur and Vizianagaram.
“We have tested those in proximity to confirmed cases as reported in the Arogya Setu app. Out of 15,000 people tested, 410 were infected,” he pointed out. Stating that sample collection has been decentralised, he said efforts are on to maintain the R Naught value between 1-1.5 per cent, as, if it crosses 2 per cent (exponential growth in number of cases) it would be a difficult situation to handle. He said extra focus is on Krishna and Kurnool districts, where the casualty rate is relatively high.
STATE GOVERNMENT 19 VRDL LABS WITHIN 4 MONTHS
Pointing out that the state had no labs for testing four months ago, but now has 19 VRDL labs, including 4 private ones, and 47 testing machines, Jawahar Reddy said 9.7 lakh samples have been tested so far, with a testing ratio of 18,200 tests per million