With a sudden spike in positive cases of corona in Kurnool and Chittoor, Rayalaseema region has become a major hotspot for the spread of Covid-19 in Andhra Pradesh.
Andhra Pradesh reported around 62 new cases on Sunday evening. Of this, as many as 52 cases new cases of corona virus were reported in a single day on Sunday in Kurnool alone in Rayalaseema. Till Saturday, the district reported only four cases. The State government has placed Kurnool on a high alert and declared 24-hour curfew in Nandyal. The state government has directed the district officials to strictly implement all the guidelines keeping in view the surge in coronavirus positive cases in the last few days. The district administration has intensified contact tracing since most of the positive cases were identified to be Jamaat returnees.
Andhra Pradesh has so far reported 252 cases of corona, 190 of them linked to the Tablighi Jamaat religious congregation in South Delhi’s Nizamuddin. The state government had placed the residential locations of people who tested positive on a red alert list. Kurnool tops the list with a total 56 positive cases of Covid-19, followed by Nellore with 34 cases and Guntur with 30 cases.
The first case in Kurnool was reported in Nossam village of Sanjamala mandal when a 23-year-old man from Rajasthan was tested positive for the virus. While Kurnool tops the list with a total 56 positive cases of Covid-19, Nellore reported 34 cases, Chittoor reported 17, Kadapa 16 cases, Tirupati (5), Anantapur (3).
Rayalaseema has now become the fulcrum of attention amid the Tablighi Jamaat episode with a majority of the congregation attendees hailing from this region in Andhra Pradesh. The AP government has estimated that more than 1,000 people from the state might have attended the Tablighi Jamaat congregation in Markaz in Nizamuddin. In Rayalaseema alone, at least 150 people who were tested positive for the virus have been linked to Tablighi Jamaat congregation.
AP saw a spurt in COVID-19 cases after March 20, when large numbers of people who had attended the Tablighi Jamaat congregation at Delhi, between March 13-15, began returning to their homes. However, Chief Minister Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy had appealed to the people to refrain from blaming any particular community for the spread of the virus in the state.
With a sudden spike in positive cases of corona in AP, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday called up the Chief Minister and enquired about the measures being initiated by the state government to contain the spread of the contagion.
