Telangana had reported its first Covid-19 case on March 2 last year. After a year of anxiety, apprehensions, and widespread fear mongering the State is limping back to normalcy.
As it did elsewhere, the virus crashed the State’s economy as thousands of small and medium businesses suffered heavily, shedding jobs. At one point, the State’s revenues had touched zero, pushing it into severe financial crisis.
After a year, the total number of Covid-19 positive cases in the State stood at three lakh. As many as 1,635 people succumbed to the virus. Like many other States, Telangana too faltered in the initial few weeks in tackling the unprecedented challenge.
While its efforts to identify and track down those attended the religions gathering at Delhi proved to be successful, Telangana Government’s reluctance to share the information on the spread of the virus attracted sharp criticism from several quarters.
The High Court made several harsh comments and criticised the Government for not divulging the information related to the number of cases in a proper format and on the availability of diagnostic centres and hospital beds.
There was a severe shortage of beds and infrastructure to handle emergency cases. Several cases of death due to lack of emergency cases were reported.
The State also attracted sharp criticism for have very low number of tests, in order to keep the incidence rate low. It also faced criticism for 'under-reporting' the deaths, discounting the deaths of people with co-morbidities from the tally.
Snapshot
As on Monday, the State has reported 2,99,086 positive cases so far, with 2,95,544 or 98.81 per cent of them recovering from the viral infection. The recovery rate is higher than the national average of 97 per cent.
To mark the anniversary of the first case, Telangana Health Minister Eatala Rajender felicitated frontline workers on Tuesday at the Gandhi Hospital, the nodal centre for handling the Covid cases.
“There were incidents where the Gandhi Hospital staff were not allowed to visit their own houses in apartment complexes. You worked hard and made the people recognise the role played by you,” he said.