Telangana Chief Secretary rules out lockdown; says situation better' in state

Hyderabad: Allaying fears of an imminent lockdown, Chief Secretary Somesh Kumar said the Telangana state government was not in favour of any such measures as they were unlikely to serve the purpose. He said the government was, however, taking every possible step to control the spread of Covid-19 in the state, adding that the situation in Telangana was much better than in many other states, including Telangana’s neighbours.

Somesh Kumar, while addressing a press conference here on Wednesday, also spoke about Telangana’s strategy for containing the spread of coronavirus saying that anyone with symptoms should visit the Covid-19 out-patient clinics at all government health centres and get themselves checked. Those who are determined to have symptoms, will be given medicine kits for Covid-19 and should start medication and isolate themselves. In the event the symptoms persist even after five days of medication, they should seek medical help again and will be given additional medications as needed, he said.

“The Indian Council of Medical Research’s latest guidelines suggest to begin treatment if someone has symptoms, something Telangana is already doing. If this is done, then people get early treatment and the chances of Covid-19 patients turning serious will be reduced, and bring down hospitalisations. The ICRM guidelines are a paradigm shift in Covid-19 management,” he said.

The Chief Secretary’s comments come in the wake of the government earlier issuing instructions to all testing centres it runs across the state to limit the number of daily tests for Covid-19. The government had previously said that anyone with symptoms must assume that he or she has caught Covid-19 and should begin medication.

He said the state had stocks of testing kits, and was in the process of starting new RT-PCR testing centres in all districts soon, adding that the state as on Wednesday, had a stock of 11 lakh Rapid Antigen Test, and 3 lakh RT-PCR test kits. “We are in the process of getting more,” he said. “Telangana has a stock of 9,00,100 Remdesivir doses. But there is no guarantee that Remdesivir saves lives but there are indications that it might reduce hospital stay among Covid-19 patients. As the days go by, I see a downward trend coming with regard to demand for Remdesivir,” he said.