Covid-19: AP Secretariat Shut 2 Blocks after Employee Tests Positive

Amaravati: The Andhra Pradesh government on Monday shut two official blocks in the state secretariat at Velagapudi in Amaravati and asked the employees working in these blocks not to come to the offices for another two days.

The decision was taken following an employee of the Secretariat testing positive for coronavirus disease Covid-19.

The man and two other government employees working in Guntur were among the around 250 state government employees who had returned to Andhra on May 24 after being stranded in Hyderabad since the beginning of the lockdown. They were brought back in special buses arranged by the APSRTC. As part of the mandatory health protocol, all of them were tested for Covid-19. Three of them tested positive for the infection on May 27.

The Secretariat employee, an attendant in the agriculture department, is learnt to have carried files between Block-3 and 4. Following his positive test, both these blocks of the Secretariat building at Velagapudi in Amravati were shut and employees working there were asked not to come to office for the next two days.

“Both the blocks have been shut for sanitisation. We have asked the government to allow the employees in these blocks to work from home. So, for the two days, they were asked not to come to the offices,” AP secretariat employees’ association president K Venkatrami Reddy said.

The Covid-19 positive man has been shifted to a hospital in Vijaywada for treatment.

The two other government employees who tested positive for Covid-19 worked in the department of cooperation at Chittigunta in Guntur and were also hospitalised for treatment.

The medical and health department authorities have identified primary contacts of the three and shifted them to various quarantine centres.

Meanwhile, 105 new Covid-19 cases were reported in the state on Monday, taking the total count to 3,674. The death toll now stands at 64 with two fatalities reported from Kurnool district.