Covid tally in Vizag district crosses 100-mark

Visakhapatnam: With 105 cumulative Covid-19 cases, Visakhapatnam now has a Covid tally in the three-digits as of Thursday. The tally includes seven recent foreign returnees. In all, the city has 32 active cases.

Starting with six cases on March 31 to just 23 cases on April 30, the number has increased more than four times from 25 positive cases on May 1 to 105 cases on May 28.

Among the 13 districts, Visakhapatnam ranks ninth in terms of highest number of cases , with West Godavari, Prakasam, Srikakulam and Vizianagaram having fewer cases than Vizag .

Of the six cases reported on Thursday, five are from a building in PM Palem—the patients and their contacts had contracted the virus from a doctor who is currently undergoing treatment. The sixth case is from Dandubazar, the place which accounts for around 25% of Covid positive cases in the district .

Covid patients are kept in Visakha Institute of Medical Sciences (VIMS), Gitam Hospital and Care Hospital II opposite KGH. Speaking to TOI, director of VIMS Dr K Satyavaraprasad said, “So far 44 critical patients or those with co-morbidities were admitted to VIMS from the four north-coastal AP districts. Currently, 20 of them are active cases and they are stable. None of them are in the ICU as of now.”

Speaking about the containment zones, district medical and health officer (DMHO) S Tirupathi Rao informed that of the 31 containment zones, six have been already de-notified. The de-notified zones include Allipuram, NAD Shantinagar, Kunchumamba Colony of Gajuwaka, Revidi Padmanavam, Komativeedhi of Narsipatnam and Muslim Thatichetlapalem.

In the first week of May, doctors had said that the number of Covid cases will escalate with the re-opening of wine shops and due to the LG Polymers vapour leak mishap, both of which led to flouting of social distancing.

Speaking about the Covid tally, principal of Anhdra Medical College (AMC) and member of district Covid control committee Dr PV Sudhakar said, “Apart from these two reasons, foreign returnees and nearly 1,000 Covid tests daily have also led to reporting of more cases. However, as per the national average Covid doubling rate, we were supposed to double every 11 days, which theoretically means 25 to 50 cases between May 1 and May 11, 50 to 100 cases by May 22 and around 200 cases by month-end. Fortunately, we could limit the numbers from 25 to 105 in the last four weeks (May 1- May 28).”