VIJAYAWADA: The number Covid-19 deaths, new cases and active cases has reduced significantly in the past few days, Special Chief Secretary (Health and Family Welfare) Dr KS Jawahar Reddy said on Monday.
“In July, the positivity rate was 12.07 per cent, and has now come down to 8.3 per cent. The number of deaths has come down from 90 to less than 50 per day.
"There was a time when we had over one lakh positive cases, and this has reduced to around 70,000. Also, 85 per cent of active cases are mild and asymptomatic, which means these patients are either being treated in home isolation or at Covid Care Centres,” he told the media in Vijayawada.
A comparison between last fortnight and a fortnight earlier showed that 33,805 (23,75 per cent) fewer cases were reported, and the number of deaths reduced by 22.5 per cent. However, the spread of the disease has been shifting from urban to rural areas.
“As per our analysis of the previous week, 60 per cent of cases are in rural areas. In terms of deaths, 58 per cent are from rural areas, while 42 per cent are from urban regions,” he said. The number of cases in the State has been doubling at an average of 72.7 days. “Kurnool has the highest doubling rate of 181 days, followed by Anantapur (92), Prakasam (51), Krishna and West Godavari (52 each),” Reddy pointed out.
Covid-19 reproduction rate of State quite high: Special Chief Secretary
However, the Covid-19 reproduction rate of the State is quite high, he mentioned.
“The ideal rate is 0.5 or 0.6, whereas our rate is 0.94 per cent. Reproduction rate means the rate of one person infecting another. For instance, if the rate is one per cent, one person is infecting one more person,” he explained, adding that Kadapa and Krishna’s rates are 1.04 and 1.01 per cent respectively, Vizag’s rate is one per cent and other districts have rates less than one per cent.
He said the State is conducting 70,000 tests on an average per day.
“We have the capacity for 35,000 RTPCR tests as of now, and are trying to raise it to 50,000. We are trying to increase each district’s capacity by 800 to 1,000 tests. Tenders for procuring more RTPCR kits, have been given. We are also trying to procure automated extractor kits,” said Reddy.
When asked about private hospitals fleecing patients, he said, “We have already taken action against hospitals that violated the rules. Action has been taken against 17 hospitals from East Godavari, three each from West Godavari and Kurnool, two from Nellore and one from Krishna. Anyone who is made to pay more than the prescribed rates can lodge a complaint by dialling 104. They can give the details of the hospital and patient, and action will be taken.”
When asked about the rising number of cases in districts where the numbers had earlier reduced significantly, such as Krishna, he said a second phase of peak is not unusual, as in the case of Delhi.
After the recent meeting of Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the latter advised having a district-level action plan.
“Since we already have action plans at the district-level, the Chief Minister decided to go a step further and instructed us to have a sub-district-level action plan. This means that after a couple of days, each district will be asked to maintain mandal-wise, municipality-wise data of positive, active, discharged cases and deaths. They will also be directed to maintain urban and rural data separately,” he explained.
Apart from extensive testing, Covid-appropriate behaviour of citizens helped curb the numbers, he said. “As per the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) feedback process, a total of 1.54 lakh feedbacks were received from the State. Also, a campaign was conducted to increase the awareness on importance of wearing masks and maintaining hygiene, especially hand sanitisation.
It was observed that 94 per cent citizens are campaign winners, which means that they were following all the prescribed Covid19 norms. Also, 91 per cent population stated that the campaign was well implemented,” he added.
He also said that including Covid-19 treatment in Aarogyasri scheme from April 6 itself, followed by making it mandatory for all private hospitals, irrespective of whether they are network hospitals or not, to accept patients under the free health insurance scheme from July, was helpful.