After a gap of more than 50 days, the number of positive cases of Covid-19 in Telangana went up by more than 200 again, even as the state government stepped up surveillance in the districts bordering Maharashtra and Karnataka, which have been witnessing a spurt in the viral cases.
According to a bulletin issued by the state medical and health department on Saturday morning, Telangana recorded as many as 216 positive cases of Covid-19 by Friday night. This was a sudden increase of 35 cases compared to the previous day.
The last time when Telangana recorded more than 200 cases was on January 21, when the figure was 214. Since then, the number of cases has been less than 200, though the figure was fluctuating between 110 to 180. On one of these days, the number of cases even went dropped below 100.
“However, in the last four or five days, there has been a steady rise in Covid-19 infections in the state, following a steep rise in cases in the neighbouring states, particularly Maharashtra. So, we have alerted all the districts bordering these states to take necessary precautions to prevent the spread of the virus into Telangana,” state health minister Eatala Rajender said.
He instructed the authorities to ramp up Covid-19 tests to 50,000 per day and also gave a call to the people of Telangana to defer their travel to neighbouring states unless it was very essential.
{{/usCountry}}He instructed the authorities to ramp up Covid-19 tests to 50,000 per day and also gave a call to the people of Telangana to defer their travel to neighbouring states unless it was very essential.
{{/usCountry}}On Friday, as many as 34,482 tests were conducted, which revealed 216 infections and two deaths. Till date, the state has recorded a cumulative number of 1,652 deaths and 3,00,933 positive cases. Till now, there were 1,918 active Covid-19 cases in the state, as 2,97,363 have recovered with a recovery rate of 98.81 per cent.
The health minister said though the vaccination drive in the state has been going on in full swing, there should not be any complacency among the people. “The pandemic is far from over yet. We should continue to follow the stipulated guidelines to prevent the spread of the virus. Please avoid large gatherings and continue vaccinating priority groups so as to prevent the outbreak of new wave of infections,” he said.