TS data suggests it is ‘community transmission’
Telangana state may have been experiencing community transmission of Coronavirus for some time now. This is the phase when the disease spreads easily among people, with the virus having established itself in a population.
While there has never been an official word about it, clues to the incidence of community can be found what the daily
Covid-19 bulletins released by the state health department say — or, rather, do not say — and from information gleaned from other documents dealing with daily monitoring of Covid-19 patients.
With the state government severely pulling back on testing for Covid19, it is next to impossible to provide concrete evidence that the disease has taken hold in the community, or at least pockets of it, where asymptomatic carriers or super spreaders could be spreading the disease to the more vulnerable individuals.
The sero-sensitivity survey, recently taken up in three districts in the state by the National Institute of Nutrition on behalf of the ICMR, is expected to throw some more light on this issue when its results are made public. It was on April 14 that the daily
Covid-19 bulletin issued by the health department last said: “Till date there is no evidence of community transmission in Telangana.”
This phrase was introduced into the bulletins on April 4 following questions at the health department press meets on whether the state was experiencing community transmission.
From April 15, the phrase was dropped from the daily bulletins and the word “others” entered official patient records as the ‘source’ from which patients began contracting Coronavirus.
In the days that followed, “others” as the source of the disease along with “others contact” as people responsible for spread of the disease began appearing with increasing frequency in patient records.
Worryingly, a few hundred of the confirmed Covid-19 cases are listed as having contracted the disease from “others contact”.
Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee president N. Uttam Kumar Reddy alleged that both the Central and state governments have treated the guest workers in an inhuman manner.
He was speaking after launching a web portal to address issues of stranded migrants in Telangana at Gandhi Bhavan on Saturday. The portal has been designed by TPCC IT cell chairman K. Madan Mohan Rao, also CEO of the company US Msys.
Accusing both Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chief Minister K. Chandrashekar Rao of failing to help the guest workers, he said both governments did not show any concern even when guest workers died on the streets while returning to their homes walking. Outraged, the TPCC chief said that there were nearly 13 crore guest workers across the country in need of immediate help. He said food, which is preserved in huge quantities in the Food Corporation of India godowns, should be given to them.
Stating that the freedom of press was in real danger in Telangana, he accused the TRS government of suppressing the media.
Later in the day, Uttam Kumar Reddy distributed ’Ramzan tohfa’ (gifts) to poor Muslims families in Miryalaguda constituency. Speaking on the occasion, he said that the Congress always stood for welfare and security of minority communities and for communal harmony. He appealed to all Congress cadres in Telangana state to distribute Ramzan tohfas among poor Muslim families as Iftar dinners could not be organised due to lockdown.
Reddy also flagged off a bus for Odiya brick kiln workers from Nalgonda to Odisha. The bus charges and en route food cost was met by the Congress.
In Nalgonda, he also visited a blood donation camp organised by the Congress party on the occasion of the 55th birthday of MP Komatireddy Venkat Reddy.