Amaravati: Amid resurging Coronavirus infections in Andhra Pradesh, Governor Biswa Bhusan Harichandan on Saturday cancelled Holi festival celebrations and party at the Raj Bhavan.
"Andhra Pradesh Governor Biswa Bhusan Harichandan has decided not to organise Holi celebrations at Andhra Pradesh Raj Bhavan in Vijayawada this year, due to rise in number of Covid-19 cases," said a Raj Bhavan official.
Harichandan appealed to the people to stay at home and celebrate Holi following Covid guidelines.
He told people to maintain social distance, wear a mask, regularly wash hands with soap and use a sanitizer.
The Governor also appealed to all the eligible people to get vaccinated for Coronavirus as it helps in breaking the pandemic's chain of infections.
Earlier on Friday, Andhra Pradesh logged 984 new Covid-19 cases, while its active case tally breached the 4,000-mark to reach 4,145.
After several days, the southern state logged 900 or more cases on a single day. The new cases took its tally to over 8.96 lakh, while 306 persons recovered from the disease in the last 24 hours to raise the total number of recoveries to over 8.85 lakh.
Guntur district reported the highest number of cases at 176, followed by Visakhapatnam (170), Chittoor (163), Krishna (110), Nellore (89), Kurnool (54), East Godavari (49), Anantapur (46), Srikakulam (42), Kadapa (31), Prakasam (27), Vizianagaram (15) and West Godavari (12).
East Godavari's tally has crossed 1.25 lakh, the highest among all Andhra districts, while the state's positivity rate fell to 6.01 per cent, which is still higher than the national average of 4.9 per cent.
Meanwhile, two more persons succumbed to the virus in the past 24 hours, raising the state's Covid death toll to 7,203.
With 40,604 more tests, the total number of tests conducted in Andhra Pradesh crossed the 1.49 crore-mark.