With 4 cases, green zone Yadadri slides into red zone just in a day

HYDERABAD: In the past 70-odd days, Yadadri-Bhuvanagiri district, where the famed Yadadri temple is coming up, did not have a single Covid-19 case. But on Sunday, the district also joined the ‘league’ of Covid-19 affected districts with four people — sent to Hyderabad for tests — reporting positive. With this, only Warangal Rural and Wanaparthy among 33 districts in Telangana remain untouched by the virus since the state’s first Covid-19 case was reported on March 2 in Hyderabad.
District officials said the workers who returned from Mumbai were in their Pallerla village in Atmakur mandal just for three hours.“Since seven returnees had shown symptoms, they were sent for tests in Hyderabad and three of them had tested positive. Similarly, in Narayanpur village, three persons returned from Mumbai and were under quarantine at a local school. After two days, one of them had symptoms and was sent to Hyderabad for tests, where he was confirmed with the infection,” a district official said.
After the villagers tested positive, district authorities sent some more people to quarantine at Bibinagar AIIMS, and some primary and secondary contacts to Hyderabad for tests. “Six persons from Atmakur have been sent to Hyderabad for Covid-19 tests as they have shown symptoms,” Yadadri DM&HO D Manohar said.
But, officials are in a dilemma. They are wondering if these four cases should be bracketed under the district’s name in as the persons who tested positive are migrant workers from Mumbai. As per the Centre’s guidelines, Yadadri-Bhuvanagiri was in the green zone as it did not report a single case so far. With these four cases, the district is now a red zone. “Once the district is considered as a red zone, all the activities, like running shops, will remain suspended,” officials explained.
The state is worried about the large number of workers who are returning from various states, especially from Mumbai. “As of now, 27 districts are either in green or orange zones. If new cases of migrant workers are reported from these 27 districts, the government may have to shut some activities as per the guidelines of the Centre,” a senior official said.