Telangana Not In Favour of Lockdown: Chief Secretary

Hyderabad: Trying to assuage fears of an impending lockdown, Telangana Chief Secretary Somesh Kumar said the state government was not in favor of such steps because they were unlikely to achieve the desired results. 

He added that the government was taking every possible step to monitor the spread of Covid-19 in the state and that Telangana's situation was much better than that of many other states, including Telangana's neighbors.

While speaking at a press conference here on Wednesday (May 5th), Somesh Kumar also discussed Telangana's strategy for controlling the spread of coronavirus, advising anyone with symptoms to visit the Covid-19 outpatient clinics at all government health centres and get tested. Many who are found to have symptoms will be given Covid-19 drug kits and instructed to begin taking medication and isolate themselves. 

They can seek medical attention again if the symptoms continue after five days of treatment; he said, and added that they will be given additional medications as needed.

“The Indian Council of Medical Research’s latest guidelines suggest to begin treatment if someone has symptoms, something Telangana is already doing. If this is done, then people get early treatment and the chances of Covid-19 patients turning serious will be reduced, and bring down hospitalizations. The ICRM guidelines are a paradigm shift in Covid-19 management,” he said.

The Chief Secretary's remarks follow the government's earlier directive to all testing centres across the state to restrict the number of regular Covid-19 tests. The government had previously stated that anyone experiencing symptoms should believe they have Covid-19 and begin treatment immediately.

He said the state had testing kits on hand and was in the process of establishing new RT-PCR testing centres in all districts. He said the state had 11 lakh Rapid Antigen Test and 3 lakh RT-PCR test kits on hand as of Wednesday (May 5th).

“We are in the process of getting more,” he said. “Telangana has a stock of 9, 00,100 Remdesivir doses. But there is no guarantee that Remdesivir saves lives but there are indications that it might reduce hospital stay among Covid-19 patients. As the days go by, I see a downward trend coming with regard to demand for Remdesivir,” he said.