Nizamabad turning into hotspot, opens new front in Telangana virus war

HYDERABAD: Authorities in Telangana may have declared Greater Hyderabad as the epicentre of Covid-19 cases in the second wave, but Nizamabad town is emerging as the new hotspot.

While Greater Hyderabad, which has a population of 1.2 crore, reported around 700 cases in the last 24 hours, Nizamabad with a population of just 3.33 lakh topped 500 cases in the same period.
The trend has been continuing for the past one week, officials said. The surge in the positive cases had never gone below 200 daily for a small district such as Nizamabad in the last fortnight. Nizamabad is about 175 km from Hyderabad.
The district, which shares borders with Maharashtra, is giving jitters to officials with a positivity rate of 8% as against the state’s positivity rate of 2.5%.
“We have declared 16 containment zones in the district. More number of positive cases are reported from municipalities and villages bordering Maharashtra,” collector C Narayan Reddy told TOI.
Worried over increasing in-patient case load, the district administration has given permission to 20 more private hospitals to offer Covid-19 treatment in the last three days. Now, the bed capacity in the private hospitals has gone up to 400 from just about 20 in the last few days. In the government sector, there is a provision for 270 Covid-19 beds and 330 have been accommodated. Officials said the bed capacity in the government hospitals is being increased by another 200.
“Among the in-patients, 22% are below 40 years. The youth should not take the virus lightly and must follow Covid-19 guidelines of maintaining social distancing and wearing mask,” Dr Kiran Madala, associate professor in Government General Hospital (GGH) and ICU in-charge, Nizamabad, said.
District authorities said there have been several instances of large gatherings of people in recent times and attributed the spurt in cases to super-spreaders infecting several others. In Varni, a marriage function led to 86 positive cases and a shopping hall had reported 30 cases.
Though officials closed 18 checkpoints in the district, Salura and Salabatpur checkposts with Maharashtra are still kept open. Officials said Covid-19 case load is high from these areas. “The positivity rate from the surrounding areas is more than 15%,” a senior official said.
Fearing more outbreaks, several villages in the district are opting for lockdowns. Three mandals of Bhimgal, Erugatla and Balkonda declared self-lockdown a few days ago. Areas around Salur, Renjal, Navipet and Bodhan, which are adjacent to Maharashtra, also imposed lockdown. “The situation in our village is worrisome. We do not have proper medical facilities. Hence, we have decided that lockdown is the only option to curb the spread of the virus,” K Viresh Reddy of Navipet said.