For the seventh day in a row, Telangana continued to report deaths due to COVID-19 even as the spike in infections among foreign evacuees is posing a new challenge to health officials in the state. With three more succumbing to the coronavirus on Monday, the toll for the week climbed to 22, pushing the overall death toll to 56.
Health department officials remained tightlipped about the identity of the deceased. They were not sharing any details of the dead like age, gender and the districts they came from.
Eighteen foreign evacuees were among 66 people who tested positive on Monday. This was among the highest number of cases recorded in the last two weeks. According to the Director of Public Health, this has pushed the total number of cases to 1,920.
The total number of COVID-19 cases among foreign returnees mounted to 28.
On Saturday, four returnees from Kuwait had tested positive. This was the first case in Telangana of Indian citizens repatriated under evacuation mission Vande Bharat found infected by COVID-19.
Six more evacuees were also tested positive on Sunday. Officials, however, have not revealed the countries the 28 evacuees came from.
The foreign evacuees are the latest category of cases to be added to the daily media bulletin. This came even as the authorities are grappling with the rising number of cases among the migrant workers native to Telangana who are returning from other states.
As many as 15 migrants tested positive on Monday, pushing the total numbers in this category to 145.
The state has been adding 40 to 50 cases every day to its tally for nearly two weeks. Continuing the trend, the area under the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) accounted for a majority of the new cases (31) on Monday.
Claiming that the state still has the best recovery rate in the country, officials said 72 patients were discharged on Monday, taking the cumulative figure of total patients recovered to 1,164.
"We now have 700 people who are undergoing treatment at Gandhi Hospital in Hyderabad," the director of public health said.
IANS inputs