Hyderabad: The lockdown has helped Telangana cut the Covid-19 transmission chain in a major way, with the number of both new cases and active cases witnessing a significant drop. This, in turn, has brought the much-needed respite to the health infrastructure in the State, and to the public as well.
Director of Public Health Dr G Srinivasa Rao, interacting with the media here on Thursday, said the State had witnessed a significant drop in the rate of daily new Covid infections, positivity rate and active cases.
We have managed to drastically cut down the transmission chains of SARS-CoV-2 in Telangana, which has led to a drop in positivity rate, new infections and has helped improve the recovery rate of Covid-19 positive patients. As a result, ICU and oxygen beds are available in ample numbers in both private and government hospitals,” Dr Rao said, adding that the ongoing lockdown played a positive role in the reduction of new Covid infections in the State.
“In the initial stages of the lockdown, the number of active Covid infections was close to 57,000, which has now dipped to 33,000. Similarly, the positivity rate at the beginning of the lockdown was 6.74 per cent, and now the rate has gone down to 2.19 per cent, which is a 4.5 percentage drop,” he said.
In the first week of May, the recovery rate of Covid positive cases was close to 88 per cent and after three weeks of lockdown, it had improved to 94 per cent. Overall, in every aspect of the second wave, Telangana was showing clear signs of coming out of the pandemic, he said.
The reduction in Covid-19 cases had also improved the availability of beds in private and government hospitals. “Overall, the State had 55,442 hospital beds in 1,300 private and government hospitals out of which, at present 14,656 hospital beds were occupied while 40,786 hospital beds were vacant. However, the decrease in new Covid infections and improvement in recovery rates was not to be construed as a sign to do away with Covid appropriate behaviour,” he added.
People must realise that it will take some time to fully come out of this Covid wave. If people let their guard down and are negligent about Covid appropriate behaviour, there will be sporadic instances of surge in positive cases,” Director of Medical Education Dr K Ramesh Reddy said.
While there is a drop in positivity rate of Covid infections in urban centres, a similar drop has not taken place in rural areas. “For the next 10 days, we will be focussing our attention towards the task of reducing daily new infections in the districts of Telangana,” the officials said.
