Telangana home minister tests positive for COVID-19

Telangana Home Minister Mohammad Mahmood Ali has tested positive for COVID-19, media reports said on Monday. Mahmood Ali, who has been admitted to a private hospital in Hyderabad, had showed symptoms of COVID-19 last week.

His swab samples were taken three days ago. Ali is reported to be in a stable condition. The news of Mahmood Ali testing positive comes after three MLAs of the ruling TRS tested positive for COVID-19.

Muthireddy Yadagiri Reddy, Bajireddy Govardhan and Ganesh Gupta of the TRS had contracted coronavirus recently.

Telangana has seen a spike in COVID-19 cases in recent weeks. Telangana has reported a total of 14,419 cases of COVID-19; 983 cases were reported on Sunday. The state has also witnessed 247 deaths. More than 60 per cent of the COVID-19 cases in Telangana have been reported in the Greater Hyderabad region. The Greater Hyderabad region has been seeing over 500 new cases daily for the past 10 days until Sunday.

The surge led to the Telangana government hinting it could impose a lockdown in the city for a fortnight.