Telangana High Court directs govt to ramp up Covid tests as cases spurt

Hyderabad: The Division Bench of the Telangana High Court, headed by Chief Justice Satish Chandra Sharma and Justice Abhinand Kumar Shavili on Monday heard the batch of PILs and writ petitions filed by various advocates, NGOs on Covid and directed the State government to increase testing in view of the spurt in cases.

The court also asked the government to ensure that all guidelines issued by the Union Health Ministry are adhered to as also the ICMR guidelines---people should maintain social distancing, impose restrictions on public gatherings, strengthen infrastructure in all hospitals and ensure sufficient supply of essential medicines to hospitals so that Covid patients are extended all medical aid on time.

L Ravichandra, senior counsel, and Chikkudu Prabhakar, counsel for the petitioners in the batch of PILs and writ petitions, informed the division bench that the State Government has not complied with the orders of the High Court issued earlier (in 2021, January 4 and 7,2022) directing the government to conduct one lakh RT-PCR tests a day so as to curb further spread of Covid in the state and maintain micro containment zones.

They counsels submitted before the court that until and unless the State increases the number of tests, it cannot curtail further spread of Covid. They urged the court to direct the State to order all educational institutions to switch to "online classes" in view of surge in cases.

Advocate-General Banda Shivananda Prasad informed that all orders issued by the division bench in 2021 and early 2022 are being complied with and the educational institutions in the State have been directed to hold online classes with immediate effect due to spurt in the Omicron variant.

The hearing was adjourned to January 25.