he remarkable thing about the Covid-19 story in Telangana on Wednesday that the state’s top bureaucrats were sent on a mission to three districts to impart a sense of urgency to the efforts being made statewide to implement.

Chief secretary Somesh Kumar, director-general of police M Mahendar Reddy, director of health G. Srinivas Rao and others visited Suryapet, Jogulamba Gadwal and Vikarabad districts to review the ground-level situation with respect to containment and quarantine measures being implemented in these districts.



The first-named district accounts for a disproportionate bump in the number of cases, therefore the serious attention. The high-level delegation underlined to the local administration the need to implement containment measures withgreater efficiency in these three districts.

The state was startled by a surge of 15 new Covid-19 cases, taking the number up to 943 with 725 patients currently undergoing treatment. So far, 194 individuals who recovered from the disease have been discharged.

The number of deaths rose to 24, with the passing away of a 45-year-old Unani medicine practitioner on Tuesday evening. The doctor is learnt to have come into contact with a 60-year-old woman from Talabkatta in the Old City who passed away earlier this month and was confirmed as a Covid-19 positive case.

The health department said that of the 15 new cases detected on Wednesday, 10 were from the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation limits while three were from Suryapet and two more were from Jogulamba-Gadwal district.

Late at night, chief minister K Chandrashekar Rao convened a review meeting on the state’s implementation of containment zones. The review was attended by health minister Etala Rajendar, chief secretary Somesh Kumar, DGP M Mahendar Reddy, principal secretaries S Narsing Rao, Shanta Kumari and other senior officials from the health department.

The top bureaucrats briefed the chief minister on their visit to the three districts.

Chandrashekar Rao said that after identifying Covid-19 positive cases and tracing their contacts, “we now have a good idea about the current spread of the disease based on which containment zones have been set up. People are also cooperating with the lockdown and if we continue what we are doing, then we should be able to control the disease and get good results,” a press release from the chief minister’s office said.