Two coronavirus cases sent employees at the Telangana Secretariat and Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) into a panic on Monday.
Officials and other employees in the Finance Department on the seventh floor at BRK Bhavan, which is functioning as the Secretariat temporarily, went into home quarantine after an employee tested positive. The man was reportedly infected by COVID-19 after attending the funeral of a relative.
As the word spread about the man testing positive, the staff in the Finance Department stayed away from office on Monday and went into home quarantine as a precautionary measure. Telangana Secretariat is operating from BRK Bhavan due to construction of new buildings at the old premises.
Meanwhile, panic also gripped the head office of the GHMC adjoining BRK Bhavan as one of the employees tested positive for the coronavirus. The employee working in the Engineering Department on the fourth floor had not been coming to the office since last week. Meanwhile, other employees learnt that he tested positive.
GHMC officials asked all the employees working on the floor not to come to office on Monday and Tuesday. The municipal workers took up sanitisation of all seven floors in the building.
An official in the Entomology Department said there was no need for any panic and only as a precautionary measure, employees working in three sections on the fourth floor were asked not to come to the office for two days.
He said the GHMC was taking all precautions to prevent the spread of COVID-19 among its employees. These include making wearing of masks and gloves compulsory.
COVID-19 cases hit the secretariat and GHMC at a time when the state is witnessing a surge in number of cases.
Just earlier this week, an entire floor was sealed off and sanitisation measures were undertaken at the Hyderabad Metro Rail Bhavan in the city's Rasoolpura area after a staff member working in the Telangana Chief Minister's Office (CMO), which was functioning out of the same building, tested positive for the coronavirus.
The state has been reporting over 100 cases every day. It reported 206 cases on Saturday, the highest ever single-day jump. The Health Department said the state saw 14 fatalities on Sunday, the highest toll in a single day.
Monday's incidents occurred amid an increasing number of cases among doctors and other healthcare professionals in Hyderabad.
Read:
With IANS inputs