14 deaths, 154 fresh COVID-19 cases in Telangana

Telangana continued to report a surge in COVID-19 infections with 154 cases being reported on Sunday, taking the tally to 3,650 even as 14 people died due to the virus, taking the total fatalities to 137. Out of the 154 new cases, the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) area alone accounted for 132, while the remaining were reported from different parts of Telangana, a health department bulletin said.

A total of 1,742 people have been discharged so far after treatment, it said. The number of people under treatment in the hospitals stood at 1,771, the bulletin said.

The 14 deaths included a 36-year-old journalist working with a Telugu news channel. He succumbed to COVID-19 while undergoing treatment at state-run Gandhi Hospital here.

The journalist had bilateral pneumonia with Type-1 respiratory failure and Acute Respiratory Disease Syndrome (ARDS) when he was admitted at Gandhi Hospital on June 4 after testing positive for the virus, doctors at the hospital said. He was also suffering from Myasthenia Gravis, a long-term neuromuscular disease that leads to varying degrees of skeletal muscle weakness, they added.

Meanwhile, Union Minister of State for Home G Kishan Reddy condoled the death of the scribe. Telangana Governor Tamilisai Soundararajanalso expressed grief and hinted at intensifying the fight against the pandemic in view of rise in number of cases and mortality in the state "amidst restricted testing rates." "Concerned about journalist's death.. share family's grief.

Firstline warriors drs, nurses, paramedics, police, journalists must be safeguarded 2 safeguards public in #pandemic Increasing positive cases & mortality in TS amidst restricted testing rates tell us 2 intensify our fight," she tweeted. Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao also conveyed his condolences to the members of the bereaved family.

Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee President and Nalgonda MP N Uttam Kumar Reddy and State Media Academy Chairman Allam Narayana were among those who condoled the journo's death. In a related development, the state-run Nizam's Institute of Medical Sciences here partially closed five departments for three days from Sunday till June 9 and undertook sanitization after as many as 20 doctors and nurses working in these departments tested positive for the virus last week, a senior doctor told PTI.

"The patients in these blocks were already shifted to other blocks in the hospital and the sanitisation work has begun," the doctor said.