Relaxations spread Covid in city

The lockdown relaxations extended by the Centre and Telangana government and the reopening of cities have resulted in the city recording 620 Covid-19 cases and about 15 deaths in a span of 14 days.

Coronavirus cases which were earlier restricted to Charminar, Karwan, Malakpet and LB Nagar, have now spread to Secunderabad and Khairatabad.

According to officials monitoring the Covid-19 situation in the city, it is clear that the transmission is not happening from those who returned from abroad, who are in paid quarantine, or guest workers who returned to the state and are in home quarantine.

The disease is being locally transmitted due to crowding at liquor shops, wholesale outlets, hospitals, weekly markets, banks and private organisations,

an official said.

“We were shocked to learn that in Musheerabad circle, which was Covid-19 free until last week, over

15 cases have been reported in two days. In Secunderabad zone, over

25 containment areas including house-level clusters were notified at the field level,” he said.

“We are just following the standard operating procedure (SOP), without notifying the cases to the higher authorities who asked us to follow the guidelines without irking them often,” the official said.

Senior officials at the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation headquarters said they do not have accurate numbers of the containment areas or house clusters, as the numbers fluctuate daily.

““What I remember is that we had 165 containment zones two or three weeks and we have no clue (about the number) after that. We have not been keeping tabs after that and the local teams have been asked to follow the SOPs,” the official told Deccan Chronicle.

He said that the corporation could not officially give out the compiled data because there were instructions from the higher authorities not to do so. “We see Covid-19 being transmitted to other parts of the city but we do not understand how to curtail the transmission due to the relaxations,” the official added.