Vijayawada: In the wake of a sharp decline in daily Covid-infection numbers in AP, the state government on Monday lifted the night curfew it had imposed from 11 pm to 5 pm.
Chief Minister Jagan reviewed the situation and the vaccination drive with deputy chief minister Krishna Srinivas and top officials at his camp office. The CM felt the need to lift the night curfew in the state but laid stress on the continuation of the practice of wearing masks.
Jagan called for strict compliance with Covid19 protocol in all commercial and business establishments and directed officials to continue with the fever survey and do Covid tests for symptomatic cases and intensify Covid vaccination.
The CM called for completion of recruitment in the health department and said there was the need to ensure adequate staff presence in hospitals. He called for separation of administrative and treatment responsibilities in hospitals and asked the officials to hand over the administrative work to the experts.
He asked officials to provide incentives to specialist doctors and called for preparation of guidelines to provide doctors working in tribal areas with more salary and facilities. He proposed an additional 50 per cent in the basic pay for such specialist doctors and 30 per cent for ordinary doctors.
Meanwhile, officials told the CM that the number of Covid positive cases was coming down. The number of daily Covid positive cases came down to 18,929 against 1,00,622 last week.
Referring to the daily Covid positivity rate, the officials said it at present was 3.29 per cent against 17.07 the last week.
As for vaccination, the officials said 3,90,83,148 persons were given both the first and second doses while 39,04,927 were given only one dose. Covid vaccination was completed of the order of 96.7 per cent of both the doses for those aged above 45 years and 90.07 per cent among the 18-44-year age-group.
Out of 15,02,841 persons targeted for the precautionary dose, 11,84,608 were given the jabs, officials said.
