There was no let up in the number of Covid-19 cases in Tamil Nadu as the State diagnosed 13,776 new cases on Friday. The last 24 hours saw the pandemic claiming 78 lives across the State.
Capital city of Chennai continued to be the hot spot as 3,842 new persons were diagnosed with the disease. Neighbouring Chengalpattu registered 985 new cases while Coimbatore, the industrial hub of South India saw the number of patients going up by 889.
Thiruvallur, another neighbouring district of Chennai saw the pandemic continuing unabated with 807 new cases.
The State continued with massive testing and on Friday more than 1.25 lakh persons were tested as part of the Mass Test programme. The Government informed the Madras High Court that the State has sufficient stock of vaccines, oxygen and hospital to take on any emergency measures.
The Government’s move to consider the proposal from Sterlite Ltd at Thoothukudi to reopen its defunct plant to produce oxygen suffered a setback as major opposition parties like the CPI(M), Vaiko’s MDMK and Seeman’s NTK came out in the open staging protests against the opening of the plant.
Though the district collector who had convened the meeting said that there was an urgent need of oxygen across the country in the bacdrop of the ever increasing number of Covid-19 cases, the activists said they were not bothered about what was happeneing outside Tamil Nadu. “we will not allow the reopening of the Sterlite Plant which had caused havoc with the environment. It is against the nature to think of reopening the plant,” said senior activist M Krishnamurthy.