Telangana adds 155 fresh cases to its COVID-19 tally

Telangana saw 155 new COVID-19 cases on Friday taking the total positives in the state to 7,94,184.No fresh fatality occurred due to the infectious disease and the toll continued to be 4,111, a health bulletin said.Hyderabad accounted for the highest number of 81 cases followed by 42 cases in Ranga Reddy district.A total of 59 people recovered from the infection today taking the cumulative recoveries till date to 7,89,166.

Telangana saw 155 new COVID-19 cases on Friday taking the total positives in the state to 7,94,184.

No fresh fatality occurred due to the infectious disease and the toll continued to be 4,111, a health bulletin said.

Hyderabad accounted for the highest number of 81 cases followed by 42 cases in Ranga Reddy district.

A total of 59 people recovered from the infection today taking the cumulative recoveries till date to 7,89,166. The active cases stood at 907, the bulletin said. A total of 16,319 samples were tested today and the total number examined till date was 3.51 crore. The case fatality rate was 0.51 per cent and the recovery rate 99.37 per cent. Meanwhile, Director of Public Health (DPH) Dr G Srinivasa Rao ruled out the possiblity of a fourth COVID wave in the state.

''One reason is there is no new variant. Whatever the cases we are seeing are part of the Omicron subvariants. In Telangana, 65 per cent belong to BA.2 Omicron subvariant. During the third wave, majority of the population was already infected by Omicron. There is hybrid immunity in the public. And our vaccination coverage is more than 100 per cent and majority of the population has developed the anti-bodies. Untill unless we get a new variant in the country or in the world there will not be any fourth wave,'' he told reporters here. There has been a surge in COVID-19 cases across the country in the last two weeks, he said adding even Telangana witnessed an increase in the infections. In view of rise in cases, the Telangana High Court advised to ramp up the COVID-19 tests and already around 14,000 tests are being carried out per day in Telangana. The District health authorities have been directed to intensify surveillance and also ramp up the daily number of tests, he said. Most of the people display only mild symptoms like headache, body ache, fever and sore throat. ''In view of the reopening of schools (in the coming days) , we advise the parents of the children between the 12-18 years age group to get them vaccinated, to prevent any infections,'' Srinivasa Rao said. Reacting to a query, the health official said as many as eight cases of BA.4 and five cases of BA.5 (Omicron subvariants) have been detected recently in the state. ''May be in the coming days we can see (surge in Telangana and other states)''.