COVID-19: Andhra records more recovered cases than active ones for first time

With 73 people in Andhra Pradesh recovering from COVID-19 and being discharged on Sunday, the state now has fewer active cases on record than recovered cases, for the first time since the start of the pandemic. 

As of Monday, Andhra Pradesh has recorded a total of 2,018 COVID-19 cases, with 38 new cases detected from testing 7,409 samples in the preceding 24-hour period. Of these, 975 cases are active, while 998 people have been discharged. A total of 45 people in the state have lost their lives to the disease.

While the state has continued to test a large number of samples every day, the daily count of cases has declined over the past few days. 

Chittoor recorded nine new cases on Monday, of which eight were found to be connected to the Koyambedu cluster. Earlier, as of Sunday, Chittoor had 26 cases related to the Koyambedu cluster of cases in Tamil Nadu, with vegetable vendors travelling to the Koyambedu vegetable market in Chennai in the past few days. 

The district administration has quarantined several primary and secondary contacts of the patients. Police have also increased vigil at the Tamil Nadu border. Nellore, another district in Andhra Pradesh which shares a border with Tamil Nadu, is also on alert, with officials tracing people who recently visited the Koyambedu market. 

Kurnool, the worst-affected district, also recorded nine new cases on Monday, taking the district total to 575 cases. Kurnool also has the highest death toll at 16. Guntur district recorded five new cases, while Krishna district recorded three cases. Anantapur also saw a spike with eight new cases. 

The situation in the worst-affected districts like Krishna, Guntur and Kurnool seems to be stabilising with the number of new cases declining. Vizianagaram and Srikakulam districts, which have the lowest number of known cases so far, saw zero new cases on Monday.