COVID-19: Hard hit Karimnagar in Telangana on road to recovery

Karimnagar (Telangana), Apr 24 (): Karimnagar, anondescript district in Telangana, which hit the headlinesafter the visit of 10 Indonesian preachers who tested positivefor COVID-19, is on the road to recovery with lifting ofrestrictons of six of the seven containment zones, due to theadministration's tireless efforts, Collector K Shashanka said.

"The district, which had as many as 19 cases at its peak,has only two active cases now and if those two recover and aredischarged, the whole district will come under the green zonein case no new case is reported henceforth," he said.

The last case was reported on April 15, Shashanka said.

Karimangar had hit headlines after it came to light thatthe Indonesian preachers visited various places in thedistrict after attending the Tablighi Jamat event in Delhiearlier in March.

A case was slapped against them and also some locals whoharboured them for alleged negligence and disobedience to theorder issued by a public servant.

"Time will decide whether we have succeeded in reducingthe cases or not .What we can say is that we had very goodsupport form the state government.

The second thing is that it is a team effort inKarimnagar. The community also came forward and complied.

We have been implementing the States instructionsand Government of India's guidelines from time to time.

We have tried to involve the community in a big way,"the Collector told .

According to him, the first case was reported on March17 which prompted the authorities to track the contacts andidentify the foreigners, who were later sent to the state-runGandhi Hospital after they tested positive.

The district administration,along with local police usinglatest surveillance technologies strictly implemented thelockdown announced by both the state government and thecentre.

"We have used drones to check peoples movement incontaminant zones.

We intensified our efforts to ensure that the lockdown isimplemented in letter and spirit, Karimnagar policecommissioner VB Kamalasan Reddy said.

According to an official communication from the district,as many as 790 people are in home quarantine and only sevenare in government quarantine centres as on Friday.

We had seven containment zones in the district.Right now we have only one containment zone. As per the latest state instructions if there is a singlecase and 14 days have passed, then we can release thecontainment zone, if no new case is reported, the collectorsaid. GDK APRRAVINDRANATH APRRAVINDRANATH