Telangana, which had been able to deal with the Covid-19 pandemic reasonably well, has been seeing a sudden spurt in cases recently.
According to the bulletin released by the state's medical and health department this morning, 216 new cases were recorded in the past 24 hours. 52 new cases were also found within the limits of the GHMC area. With this, the tally of total cases went up to 3,00,933.
Further, two people reportedly succumbed to the virus since yesterday pushing up the death tally to 1,652. Currently, there are 1,918 active cases in Telangana.
On the bright side, however, there have been as many as 2,97,363 recoveries in the state.
However, the recent spike in coronavirus cases has left many people in Telangana concerned. One among these people is senior Congress leader and former minister Mohammed Ali Shabbir. Expressing his fears about the possibility of renewed Covid-19 wave, he urged the TRS-led state government and Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao to take stringent additional measures to prevent the same.
In a statement, the leader said, "There has been a significant increase in the number of fresh cases of Coronavirus in Telangana, especially in the last 10 days. The state government should take immediate steps to prevent the further spread of the virus, especially in view of reports of spurts in new cases in Maharashtra and other states across the country. It must seriously implement the 'Trace, Test and Treat' policy to avoid further damage by the pandemic."
He then flayed the state government for its allegedly lackadaisical attitude towards the pandemic, and said, "The Telangana government has not been able to take the pandemic situation seriously even though over 3 lakh people in the state have been infected with Covid-19 and1,652 people have succumbed to the disease. People are losing their lives, yet the TRS regime remains unbothered. It has adopted a rather casual approach towards the whole situation. In fact, the government was even accused of hiding the real Covid-19 statistics - the health authorities were reluctant to issue a daily bulletin on Covid-19 cases and deaths. This had forced the
Telangana High Court to intervene and to direct the health authorities to share information about the pandemic with the public."
In his statement, the leader also disclosed that he had taken his first dose of the Covid-19 vaccine at the Apollo Hospital in Jubilee Hills today, and encouraged all the people of the state to also get themselves vaccinated at the earliest.
"Please do not believe in rumours and misinformation, and get yourself vaccinated at the earliest. That is the only way we can resume our normal lives," Shabbir Ali said.