Hyderabad: The Telangana High Court on Tuesday directed the state government to file a status report within 48 hours on various aspects with regard to the containment, vaccination and measures undertaken to tackle the COVID-19 pandemic in the state, as cases have seen a spike.
A bench of Chief Justice Hima Kohli and Justice B Vijaysen Reddy, hearing a batch of PILs on COVID-19 issues, sought details on the state’s plan of action and steps to contain the spread of the disease such as testing, earmarking micro containment zones and vaccination, among others.
The court directed the Advocate General to file a report on the state’s preparedness in view of the second wave of COVID-19 and file its report within two-days.
Referring to the number of COVID-19 tests, the bench directed the state government to conduct more RT-PCR tests and sought details of the testing centres.
The bench suggested that the state government set up vaccination centres in districts to immunise more number of people to curb the spread of virus and asked why vaccination was not being done round-the-clock.
It further sought details on the steps that the state government was taking to manage gatherings at marriage functions, death ceremonies, function halls, theatres, bars, pubs, restaurants and places of gathering.
The court also directed the government to inform it about the cases registered against violators who are not adhering to the COVID-19 norms and posted the matter to April 8.
Meanwhile, Chief Secretary Somesh Kumar on Tuesday held a video conference with District Collectors and senior officials to review measures being taken for the containment of COVID-19 pandemic in the state, an official release said.
He directed Collectors to steeply increase and double the number of tests being done on a daily basis in order to identify as many COVID-19positive persons as possible,it said.
The Collectors were told to ensure that the pace of testing does not come down on weekends and holidays and all testing centres must work on all days of the week.
Somesh Kumar also asked the Collectors to ramp up the pace of COVID-19 vaccinations.