Andhra Pradesh was one of the nine states asked to “test, track, treat” more, at a meeting the Cabinet Secretary Rajiv Gauba had with the health secretaries and other officials of the states. The other states included Telangana, Karnataka, Assam, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand, Odisha, and West Bengal. Going by the sheer numbers Andhra is doing well as far as testing goes. The rising number of cases in the state though is because of the rush to get back to business as usual.
East Godavari with 14 per cent of the total COVID-19 cases in Andhra Pradesh poses an urgent challenge to authorities in the state, especially the cities of Kakinada and Rajamahendravaram have remained hotspots. But other districts in the state too are not too far behind. Kurnool, Anantpur and Chittoor are right up there.
A similar situation exists in districts with high daily cases such as East Godavari (17%) with, Guntur (15%), Anantpur (13%) and Kurnool (11%).
While Andhra Pradesh has consistently been conducting a lot more tests than other cities, the aggregate figures don’t tell us much. For instance, on July 23, the state conducted 58,052 tests, which includes 25,618 rapid antigen tests. The total tests conducted till Thursday stood at 14,93,879.
The week-on-week figures, especially over the past three weeks show a doubling in the number of cases. The July 18-24 week shows a steeper jump. The cases-to-test ratio has worryingly risen from about 3 per cent at the beginning of July, quickly climbing to 5 per cent in the following week, then a steep jump to almost 11 per cent in the week ending July 17 and the a high of 14 per cent in the week ending on July 24 . But a testing rate should be dependent on the infection rate in a region and determine the number of tests, rather than a number decided by some bureaucratic need.
Instances like the widely reported case of the East Godavari village of Gollala Mamidada have set the state back precipitously and so has Chittoor district’s Tirupati crisis.
A closer look at the districts in neighbouring states might also reveal the need for a great vigilance, but blaming “outsiders” is the easiest way to abdicate responsibility for what is happening at home. The case of Varadaiahpalem, near Tirupati, is a case in point, where a local resident returned from Chennai and infected many people.
Andhra Pradesh is probably the best example of how initial success led to complacency and the lowering of the guard, and is emerging as a big concern in the country.