With the number of patients testing positive for coronavirus reaching 485 by Saturday evening in Tamil Nadu, the State Government has asked the Chennai office of the National Institute of Epidemiology to undertake a study on why the returnees from the congregation at Nizamuddin were afflicted with this pandemic.
This was stated by Beela Rajesh, secretary to the department of health and family welfare while addressing the daily media briefing on Saturday. She said 74 persons tested positive on Saturday alone. “Out of the 485 persons tested positive for coronavirus in the State, 422 are either Nizamuddin returnees or people with whom they had interacted. There are only 63 persons who tested positive for corona virus who do not have anything to do with the religious congregation,” said the health secretary.
Despite the sudden spurt in the number of corona positive cases in the State, Tamil Nadu is still in Stage -2 of the disease and the administration has launched all-out containment activities to control and check the situation from vitiating further, she said.
“By Sunday, all medical colleges in the State would have set up the testing facilities which is expected to bring down the time taken for testing the corona virus attack. More than 29 lakh people in the State had been screened since the outbreak of the disease,” said Rajesh. She said the State was on the alert from January 18 onwards and all passengers reaching the airports in Tamil Nadu had been screened and tested. This is one of the reasons for Tamil Nadu effectively controlling the corona virus spread. But the Tablighi Jamaat conference and subsequent developments had contributed in upsetting our work. Now we are in a State of medical emergency,” said Rajesh.
She asked the people not no panic and to observe strictly the social distance rules. “All senior citizens with history of blood pressure and sugar are asked to undergo tests for the same in the changed situation,” said the health secretary.
In Chennai, the civic administration along with the department of health officials have identified ‘eight hotspot clusters’ in the city where multiple corona virus cases have been identified. The civic officials along with police sealed the entry and exit points to all these clusters to prevent the movement of vehicles as well as unauthorised persons.
Chief Minister Edappadi Palaniswamy, who is the overall commander of the fight against the pandemic asked the people to strictly adhere to the social distance and not to come out of the houses unless it is an emergency. “We have given full authority to the police to take legal action against those who wander around the metro,” he said in a video message. The Chief Minister also disclosed that cash assistance of Rs 1,000 would be provided to each of the rice ration card holders in the State and this amount would be delivered at the doorsteps itself by Government staff so that people need not come out of the houses and stand in queues.
MK Stalin, leader of the Opposition who is also the president of the DMK asked party cadre to stop all political activities and engage themselves in helping the administration to fight the corona virus. Interestingly, Jayanthi Natarajan, former union minister and Congress leader said in a TV programme that she too would cooperate with the Centre and State Government in eradicating coronavirus cases.