VIJAYAWADA: The impact of Covid-19 in Andhra Pradesh is steadily decreasing, Principal Secretary (Health) Anil Kumar Singhal said referring to the decreasing positivity and death rates, and increasing availability of hospital beds (both ICU and oxygen).
Briefing mediapersons on Saturday, he said: “Against 10,413 from 85,311 samples testing positive a day ago, 10,373 cases emerged from 88,441 samples on Saturday, bringing down the positivity rate to 11.73 per cent today from 12 per cent on Friday.”
The decrease in new cases and increase in hospital discharges also brought down the demand for beds. From 1,664 available on Friday, 1,774 ICU beds were available on Saturday; 8,164 oxygen beds were vacant.
“Even the number of people being admitted to Covid care centres is decreasing. From 14,246 patients on Friday, the CCCs were treating only 12,247 were getting treatment on Saturday. As many as 3,247 patients were discharged against 1,248 new admissions,” he explained.
Singhal said the State lifted only 356 MTs on Friday and 406 MTs the next day of liquid medical oxygen even as allocated quantity is 590 MTs, which shows the reducing dependency on oxygen. As of Saturday, 1,460 black fungus cases had been reported across the state, he added.
According to him, the quantum of calls to ‘104’ call centres have also decreased. On Friday, the centres received 3,351 calls and 3,061 calls on Saturday. On the other hand, medical experts empanelled with the call centre made 12,697 teleconsultation calls on Friday and 24,706 calls on Saturday.
Confident of vaccination
The principal secretary (health) was confident that all 1.33 crore people over the age of 45 years will be vaccinated in the next one month.
“As of date 1,06,47,444 doses of Covid vaccines have been administered: 25,65,162 people were administered both the doses, and 55,13,120 were given just the first dose,” he said.