COVID-19 restrictions back in East Godavari villages amid spike in cases
Days after curfew timings were relaxed across the 13 districts of Andhra Pradesh, restrictions are back in a few parts of East Godavari where a spike in COVID-19 cases has been observed. Revenue officials said that the movement of people is being restricted between 2 pm to 6 am in villages where the test positivity rate (TPR) is higher than 10%. As a result, the extended curfew has been reimposed in a few villages of Amalapuram and Rajahmundry revenue divisions, including P Gannavaram, Ainavilli, Atreyapuram, and Gollaprolu mandals.
“Movement has been restricted again from 2 pm to 6 am in Atreyapuram, Peravaram, Vaddiparru and Ryali villages. They have been declared containment zones and barricades have been set up,” Atreyapuram mandal tahsildar Ramakrishna said, adding that the restrictions have currently been imposed for a period of one week. Similarly, restrictions from 2 pm to 6 am have been reintroduced across P Gannavaram mandal for a week. Tahsildar Mrutyunjaya Rao said that while the actual number of cases is not alarmingly high yet, with daily cases in each village being reported in single digits, the decision was taken as the test positivity rate in the mandal was high.
According to the office of the District Revenue Officer, in the last seven days, increased positivity rate has been observed in parts of several mandals including Devipatnam, Razole, Kakinada Rural, Kadiyam, Sankhavaram, Kunavaram, Mummidivaram, Allavaram, Seethanagaram and Kajuluru, where officials have been instructed to step up their vigilance in enforcing COVID-19 protocol, and to restrict movement and non-essential services and shops from 2 pm to 6 am.
East Godavari has been one of the worst-affected districts in the state, with the highest total number of positive cases reported since the beginning of the pandemic. The district has officially recorded the second-highest number of COVID-19 deaths so far (1196), after Chittoor (1696). According to the CoWIN dashboard, a total of 19,17,486 vaccine doses have been administered in East Godavari so far (14,87,874 first doses and 4,29,612 second doses). As the lockdown restrictions imposed amidst the second wave of COVID-19 were relaxed in a phased manner in the state, East Godavari was among the few districts where curfew was relaxed only ten days ago, on July 12. On Tuesday, July 20, the state government announced that the night curfew from 10 pm to 6 am would be continued for another week.