With the number of new Covid-19 cases witnessing a sharp increase in the State, the Telangana government has decided to ramp up the vaccination programme.

From about 30-40,000 doses a day, the Government has directed the Health Department officials to increase the doses administered every day to over 1.25 lakh.

Telangana, which is among the States that reported sluggish vaccination programme, has so far administered 15.46 lakh doses.

In a video conference with District Collectors on Tuesday, Chief Secretary Somesh Kumar asked the officials to increase surveillance by improving the scope of Covid management by doing testing, tracing, treating and increasing the vaccination cover.

The Chief Secretary directed the Collectors to double the number of tests, including on weekends, which generally see a dip in the number of tests. At present, the State is doing about 50-60,000 tests a day.

The Chief Secretary fixed minimum performance benchmarks for all government vaccination centres.

Daily tally

On Monday, the State reported 1,498 new positive cases and six deaths due to the viral infection. There are about 10,000 active cases.

Asking the officials to follow the ICMR’s testing guidelines, he said that all symptomatic persons found negative in rapid antigen tests should take RT-PCR (Real-Time Reverse Transcription–Polymerase Chain Reaction) tests.

He also wanted the Collectors to enforce the orders that mandated people to wear masks in public places and barred people from celebrating religious events in public and holding rallies and processions.

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