Telangana: 38 students test Covid positve at private college in Rangareddy district

Hyderabad, Dec 31: At least 38 students of Sri Chaitanya College in Telangana's Rangareddy district tested positive for Covid on returning to campus after Christmas holidays. All students who tested positive have been isolated and the college has been closed for sanitisation.

On Thursday, COVID-19 cases in Telangana continued to rise with 280 fresh infections being reported in last 24 hours, pushing the tally to 6,81,587, while the toll was up at 4,021 with one more fatality.

The state also reported five new cases of Omicron variant of COVID-19, taking the tally to 67. As many as 22 people recovered from the new strain, leaving the number of active cases at 45, a state government bulletin said, providing details as of 5.30 PM today.

The number of fresh COVID-19 cases has outnumbered recoveries for the past few days.

According to the bulletin, 206 people recovered from the infection and the cumulative number of recoveries till date was 6, 73,999, leaving 3,563 active cases.

Nearly 38,000 samples were tested on Thursday, taking the total so far to 2.96 crore.

The samples tested per million population were over 7.97 lakh.

The case fatality and recovery rates were 0.59 per cent and 98.88 per cent respectively.

Telangana Public Health Director G Srinivasa Rao, in a press conference, said the state may witness a spike in the number of cases in the coming two to four weeks and that period is crucial in terms of containing the spread of the virus.

However, he urged people not to worry and follow all COVID-19 appropriate behaviour.

"We are well prepared to face any situation. Over 90 per cent of people do not have any symptoms. We may witness the highest spike in the number of cases within a few weeks and we will experience the spike for a very short period," he said.

He predated that the third wave is expected to taper in six months.