Prepared to tackle coronavirus: Visakhapatnam Collector Vinay Chand

In the wake of the increasing number of coronavirus cases in India, Chief Secretary Nilam Sawhney, on Wednesday, conducted a video conference with the secretaries of 16 government departments and the collectors of all the 13 districts and directed on the preventive measures to be taken. Speaking in the meeting, Visakhapatnam District Collector V Vinay Chand stated that the district administration, along with the health department, is well equipped and in readiness to tackle the rapidly spreading coronavirus.

Mr. Chand stated that the hospitals in Visakhapatnam city had 110 isolated beds. The tally is likely to be taken to 120-170 with a few more hospitals in the district in line to be equipped with these beds. The Collector informed the Chief Secretary that 7337 individuals (6634 at airport and 703 at port) coming in from other countries were screened in the city as on Wednesday. While 101 of them have been kept under observation, there have been no positive cases reported as yet. He further added that joint meetings were held with officials of the Navy, CRPF, Visakhapatnam port, airport, and Gangavaram port.

In addition to putting up hoardings and telecasting ads through media channels to create awareness on coronavirus, Vinay Chand said that the administration in Visakhapatnam will take the help of NGOs to spread the word on a wider scale. GVMC Additional Commissioner Thameem Ansariya, DMHO Tirupati Rao, and other health officials also took part in the meeting.