Andhra Pradesh logs 10,000 plus cases, 75 deaths; tally mounts to 465,000

As many as 62,225 samples tested returned 10,199 coronavirus positive cases in Andhra Pradesh as the aggregate shot up to 4,65,730 on Thursday.

The latest government bulletin said 9,499 COVID-19 patients got cured and were discharged from hospitals while another 75 died in the last 24 hours ending 9 AM.

After a total of 3,57,829 infected got cured, the state now has 1,03,701 active cases.

The total COVID-19 deaths in the state now stood at 4,200.

This is the ninth day in a row the state has reported fresh cases in excess of 10,000.

While East Godavari continued to add more than 1,000 daily cases, SPS Nellore and Prakasam the latest danger zones

reported over 900 each.

Five districts registered fresh cases in excess of 800 each, according to the bulletin.

The overall infection positivity rate inched closer to the 12 per cent mark, touching 11.92 per cent on Thursday after 39.05 lakh tests were done.

In a reversal of situation, Prakasam district, declared coronavirus-free in the first week of May after recovery of all the few hundred infected people, now has the second highest number of 11,794 active cases in the state.

Prakasam crossed the 25,000 total cases mark on Thursday as it has been constantly adding new positives of more than 900 daily over the past few days.

The toll in the district now stood at 298.

In the month of August, a sum of 17,261 new cases were added while 9,450 recovered.

The district saw 219 deaths in the month and the active cases climbed to 10,150. In the last three days, another 2,614 cases were reported along with 14 fresh fatalities.

A recent analysis by the state health department revealed that 69 per cent of the fresh cases in the district were coming from rural areas.

It has also been reporting a high number of deaths, 54 per cent of which were in urban centres.

While the case doubling rate in the state was 30.2 days, it was just 18.5 in Prakasam.

The spike in coronavirus cases has exposed the lack of health care facilities proportionate to the demand.

According to the government data, just about 1,000 COVID-19 patients were lodged in eight hospitals, including private, in Prakasam district with the Government General Hospital in district headquarters town Ongole bearing more than half the load.

There have been complaints of patients being turned away due to non-availability of beds in government hospitals.

We are trying to open up more facilities in Kandukuru and Markapuram regions in view of the increasing caseload. Even in the local primary health centres in mandals, we are trying to accommodate coronavirus patients and we are also supplying oxygen to these centres to meet the demand, a senior health official said.