3 deaths in A.P. & Karnataka, new cases in Kerala

Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan says vigil is needed at borders as cases are coming in from the other States

22/04/2020, SPECIAL

 CORRESPONDENT,VIJAYAWADA/HYDERABAD/BENGALURU/THIRUVANANTHAPURAM

Kurnool and Guntur districts continue to remain hotspots for COVID-19 in Andhra Pradesh, registering new positive cases with each passing day. Two more persons have succumbed to the disease in Guntur, raising the toll in the State to 22.

One person who died in Karnataka was found positive for the virus.

Bucking the trend of over a week, Kerala had 19 new COVID 19 cases on Tuesday. The number of patients declared to have recovered from the disease was 16.

Andhra Pradesh registered 35 new cases in the 24 hours ending Tuesday morning, and 19 of them were from the two districts – Kurnool (10) and Guntur (9). The other districts were Kadapa with six cases, West Godavari four, and Krishna and Anantapur three each.

With the latest additions, the total number of positive cases went up to 757. With four persons recovering on the day, the number of those who recovered so far stood at 96. The number of active cases was 639.

Meanwhile, Andhra Pradesh tested 5,022 samples in the last 24 hours, the second time it crossed the 5,000 mark.

Kurnool has reported 184 cases and Guntur 158 in all. Krishna (83), Nellore (67), Chittoor (53), Kadapa (46), Prakasam (44), West Godavari (39), Anantapur (36), East Godavari (26), and Visakhapatnam (21) are the other districts with multiple cases.

Spike in Telangana

Telangana witnessed a steep surge in COVID-19 positive cases on Tuesday. There were 56 new cases taking the total number of affected persons since the outbreak of the pandemic to 928.

No deaths were reported on Tuesday and the number of casualties remained at 23. Also, 194 people were discharged from hospital.

The bulletin of the Public Health and Family Welfare department, Suryapet district reported 26 cases by evening. The GHMC area reported 19 more cases while three were reported from Nizamabad district.

Adilabad and Jogulamba-Gadwal districts reported two new cases while Khammam, Medchal, Warangal and Rangareddy reported one each. The department urged people to wear face masks compulsorily.

Chief Minister K Chandrashekhar Rao asked senior officials to tour the districts to examine how well decisions to prevent spread of coronavirus were being implemented. Mr. Rao held a high-level review meeting on Tuesday.

With a senior citizen succumbing to COVID-19, Karnataka’s death toll touched 17 on Tuesday.

The day saw 10 more cases being detected, taking the total number of cases to 418.

An 80-year-old man from Kalaburagi, with a history of Parkinson’s disease, and admitted on April 19 with Severe Acute Respiratory Illness passed away on Monday morning and he was later reported positive.

Of the 10 new cases, three each are from Vijayapura and Kalaburagi, two from Nanjangud in Mysuru, and one each from Belagavi and Dakshina Kannada.

In Kerala, Kannur district accounted for 10 of the new cases, Palakkad four cases, Kasaragod three, and Kollam and Malappuram one case each. Of the 19 new cases, 13 were people who had returned home from abroad, three (one each from Malappuram, Palakkad and Kollam) came from Tamil Nadu, one person had returned from Uttar Pradesh and two were contacts who had developed the disease from imported cases.

Chief Minister, Pinarayi Vijayan said cases from across the border meant that stricter control was needed at borders with other States.

Kerala has reported 426 COVID-19 cases, of which only 117 were currently undergoing treatment in hospitals.