At least 200 students residing at the boys and girls hostels on the Professor Jayashankar Telangana State Agriculture University (PJTSAU) campus in Hyderabad were evacuated on Thursday, as these hostels are now being converted into a quarantine facility.
Speaking to TNM, PJTSAU spokesperson Sudhakar said, “A holiday has been declared for the students and all staff members have been sent home.” However, it is not known when the hostels would be reopened.
The Telangana government has already set up quarantine centres at Vikarabad, Dulapally and other places in the state. In order to contain the spread of coronavirus, the government has decided to send passengers coming from countries like China, Iran, Italy, South Korea, France, Germany and Spain to quarantine in these facilities. While those who are asymptomatic would be sent to these quarantine facilities for 14 days and be monitored, the ones who are symptomatic will be rushed to the isolation ward in Gandhi Hospital, Hyderabad.
At the Rajiv Gandhi International Airport, 40 ambulances have been stationed for this purpose.
The Telangana government has not disclosed the number of quarantine facilities it has set up and their locations due to the paranoia that the disease would spread in the neighbourhood.
Health Minister Eatala Rajender told the media on Wednesday, “We have adequate beds and quarantine facilities also ready, but we are not going to disclose them because people are staging protests.”
Earlier this week, the Congress party, BJP and CPI staged a protest against the government’s decision to set up a 250-bed facility quarantine centre in Ananthagiri Hills, Vikarabad. Along with the opposition parties, the ruling party Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) MLA from Vikarabad Anand, too, requested the government to reconsider their decision, as people from his constituency were calling him out of fear.
In Telangana, so far, 13 persons have been tested positive for the disease, while the first patient from Dubai has recovered. On Wednesday, the state witnessed a sudden spike in the number of cases, as eight patients were tested positive. Among these eight patients, a 20 year-old man had returned from Scotland and the rest were Indonesian nationals, who visited Karimnagar as part of their pilgrimage.