Here’s how three districts in Telangana stayed COVID-19 free

Hyderabad: Even as the total number of Covid-19 positive cases in Telangana crosses 1,000, three districts in the state have managed to remain virus-free. Officials of Yadadri-Bhuvanagiri, Warangal Rural and Wanaparthy maintain that quick action and strict enforcement of lockdown has helped them keep the Covid-19 cases under check in the districts.

All the three, despite being surrounded by districts that are either hotspots or recorded a high number of Covid-19 cases, have managed to be green, as of May 2.

Yadadri-Bhuvanagiri district collector Anita Ramachandran feels that the district officials had strictly followed normal protocol, which could be why no cases have been recorded till now. People, who had come from other parts of the country and abroad, were advised to be in home quarantine. She also added that the people who had attended the religious congregation in Delhi were already put in home quarantine in the district when the news of infection broke out.

“There were 12 people from the district who had attended the Markaz meeting. We advised home quarantine to them and by the time the news came out, they were already not in contact with anybody," Anita Ramachandran said.

'Battle against COVID-19 not over'

The collector hastened to add that the battle against Covid-19 was not over. “We have not had cases so far but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be on guard,” the collector felt.

In case of Wanaparthy district which does not share any inter-state borders, the officials’ task was to monitor the inter-district movement of people.

“The district shares border with Gadwal and Kurnool, which were hotspots. The challenge was to prevent inter-district movement of people. To ensure this, we had established six check posts within the district. Along the riverine border, where river Krishna flows, patrolling was also done,” said Apoorva Rao, SP of Wanaparthy. The Wanaparthy police seized around 3,500 vehicles till date, with 252 cases being registered against those violating lockdown.

'Strict enforcement, support from villagers helped'

“Creating awareness abour Covid-19, checking borders, quick information gathering and support from villages and sarpanches helped us in checking the spread of the virus,” added the police officer.

Warangal Rural district, which has a population of around 7 lakh as per the census, has also not registered any Covid-19 case so far. Speaking to NewsMeter, R. Mahender Reddy, additional collector of Warangal Rural district said, “Quick gathering of information and enforcement of norms assisted officials in ensuring that the citizens here remained safe. People who were not wearing masks were fined, social distancing and other protocols were imposed. Basically, we followed normal protocol only and we should ensure that this will remain so in the future as well.”