Andhra Pradesh's Coastal Districts Bear the Brunt of COVID-19

While there does not seem to be a let up in the number of cases in Andhra Pradesh in August, the steady decline in the number of tests being conducted is worrying. The total confirmed cases reported on August 19 was  3,16,003 with as many as 9,742 new cases. The death toll now stands at 2,906, but the good news is that 8,061 patients  were discharged yesterday. The recovery rate thus stood at 71.64 per cent.

East Godavari district which is being battered by monsoon rains, with more than 50,000 people affected, continues to battle with the pandemic and tops the list of worst affected  districts in Andhra Pradesh. Kurnool district too, which witnessed an early surge, is the district that is second after East Godavari in terms of the number of cases.

The other coastal districts such as Prakasam, Nellore and Visakhapatnam are also witnessing a rapid rise in the number of cases. Prakasam, which had just 80 cases on June 1 has now reached 13,533 cases.
The district has reported 6 fatalities in the past week, while 369 patients have been discharged. According to the state government, cases are being reported from rural areas too, with villages like Korisapadu, Medermetla, Chadalavada and Cumbum reporting cases.

The chart shows the rise in the number of cases with the start day adjust to when the first district record its first 100th case. Guntur was the first district that reported its first hundredth case on April 14. Kurnool cross its first hundred cases the next day, April 15 or offset by 1 day, Anantapur (May 9 or -25 days), Chittoor (May 10 or -26 days), S.P.S. Nellore (May 10 or -26 days), East Godavari (May 27 or -43), and Visakhapatnam (May 31 or -47 days).

Visakhapatnam district reported 835 new COVID-19 cases, which makes the total confirmed cases in the district  27,090, which is more than 8 per cent of the cases in the state.
Nellore, which reported 15 fatalities on August 19, with 755 new cases, has 19,084  total confirmed or about 6 per cent of the total confirmed cases in the state.

Anantpur, one of the four non-coastal districts of the state, which reported about 1,128 on August 1, was witnessing a decline in the number of cases over the past few days, only to see a surge in cases on August 19, with  1,123 cases or more than 11 per cent of the state’s daily cases yesterday. Kadapa too, which has 1,000 confirmed cases on July 1, now has 18,759 cases.
The most fatalities are being reported from Guntur (10.8%),
Kurnool (10.6%), East Godavari (10.2%), and Chittoor (9.4%).
With districts like Kurnool with 12.4 per cent cases of the total recovered cases and East Godavari with the same percentage and Anantapur with about 11 per cent, the districts that need to ramp up their response in the coming weeks seem to be the coastal districts of Nellore, Kadapa, Visakhapatnam and, Prakasham.
From a national perspective, if we look at the bigger states, Andhra Pradesh with about 6,000 cases per million people is high. Even a state like Maharashtra, which has many districts with very high cases, has slightly more than 5,000 cases per million population, neighbouring Tamil Nadu  has 4,667 per millionand Karnataka has 3,753 per million, while Telangana at 2,595 per million seems to be doing a lot better than Andhra Pradesh.

Andhra Pradesh’s case figures have jumped significantly since the last week of July when the number of tests conducted went up significantly, but the slowing down in testing last week  (3.69 lakh from 4.14 lakh the previous week) is a cause for worry because the number of cases that were positive was at 16.7 per cent, almost the same as 16.3 per cent the previous week. Even with much few tests, the number of cases remain relatively high.