AP Guv tests negative for coronavirus

Amaravati, April 28 (): After four of his staffmembers tested positive for COVID-19 two days ago, AndhraPradesh Governor Biswabhusan Harichandan on Tuesday testednegative for the virus, Special Chief Secretary (Health) K SJawahar Reddy said.

At the daily media briefing on Covid-19 along withInformation Commissioner T Vijay Kumar Reddy, the SpecialChief Secretary said the First Lady also tested negative.

The Governor's Chief Security Officer, a staff nurseand two attendants in the Raj Bhavan tested positive two daysago.

Following this, the Governor and his spouse were alsoscreened and the tests showed no infection.

The Special Chief Secretary said, in all 31 frontlinemedical staff contracted the disease across the state in thelast few days.

"There are 12 doctors, 12 nursing staff, twopharmacists and five sanitation staff tested positive and areunder treatment," he added.

Referring to the spurt in coronavirus cases in thestate in the last few days, Jawahar Reddy said it was due tolocal transmission.

"About 80-90 per cent of the new cases are from thecontainment clusters.

Of the 82 new cases reported in the last 24 hours, 75are from the old clusters and only seven are in the new.

We are investigating the cause of the disease spreadin these new clusters," he said.

He, however, said there was no cause for concern asthe 'positivity rate' was just 1.57 per cent as against thenational average of 4.13 per cent.

Also, the cases doubling time was 9.8 days in APcompared to 8.5 days in the country.

"More number of positive cases are surfacing as weare conducting higher number of tests.

We have also stepped up community surveillance in theCOVID-19 affected clusters and hence more cases are gettingdetected," Jawahar Reddy pointed out.

With 1,504 tests per million population, AndhraPradesh was leading all states in the country in conductingthe COVID-19 tests, the Special Chief Secretary said. DBVBNWELCOME DBVBNWELCOME