Telangana saw another big surge in COVID-19 cases on Wednesday with 1,018 people testing positive for the virus, pushing the state's tally to 17,357. Authorities said that 788 people recovered during the day, taking the number of recoveries to 8,082. The number of active cases now stands at 9,008.
The spike in cases came even as the state government was once again rapped by the Telangana High Court for not implementing its orders with regard to containment of the coronavirus pandemic.
The court expressed its unhappiness over inadequate testing and for providing incomplete information in the daily media bulletin.
Hearing a batch of PILs, a division bench comprising Chief Justice RS Chauhan and Justice B. Vijayasen Reddy expressed its surprise over the orders issued by the director of public health for stopping testing midway.
It termed the official's action a violation of the guidelines of the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR).
The director had last week issued an order to stop the exercise of conducting 50,000 tests in Greater Hyderabad as samples pending testing had piled up. The testing was resumed from Tuesday after a break.
The court expressed its displeasure with the government for not providing ward-wise information in the media bulletin.
"You cannot abdicate your responsibility to protect your citizens,” the Chief Justice was quoted as saying, with the bench adding, "The state is resorting to suppression of information."
The bench asked the government to clarify its containment policy and furnish details of containment clusters. The government was directed to provide details of the number of tests conducted on asymptomatic and symptomatic persons and the number of persons who have tested positive during the last 20 days.
The court also asked the government to submit details of the outcome of the central team’s visit to Hyderabad. It expressed surprise that despite the team interacting with the Chief Secretary, no details were put up on the public domain about the outcome of the visit and the meeting.
The court made it clear that the government will have to implement the court orders before July 17, failing which the Chief Secretary, Health Secretary, Municipal Secretary and Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) Commissioner will have to appear before the court on July 20.
Meanwhile, seven deaths were also reported on Wednesday, taking the state's death toll to 267.
According to the Director of Public Health and Family Welfare, 4,234 samples were tested out of which 1,018 returned positive. The cumulative number of tests rose to 92,797, still far below many other states.
The Greater Hyderabad area accounted for 881 of the new cases, followed by neighbouring Medchal (36) and Ranga Reddy (33). The remaining cases were reported from 18 districts.
IANS inputs
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