Chief Minister Edappadi Palaniswami cautioned on Thursday there is every possibility of Tamil Nadu progressing to Stage 3 of COVID-19 from its present status of Stage 2. This means that the State faces the danger of community transmission of the virus which may force the administration to resort to extreme measures like extending the lockdown duration which was supposed to be over by April 15.
Palaniswami was addressing the media on Thursday after presiding over the meeting of the task force constituted by the State Government to monitor control and prevent the spreading of corona virus. The decision would be taken only on the basis of the severity of the spread of the pandemic.
The spread has been increasing day by day. Every other day, Corona virus spread has been on the rise, ”said the chief minister while asked about the possibility of extending the shut down.
Beela Rajesh, secretary, health and family welfare, in her daily media briefing said that the number of persons tested positive for corona virus in Tamil Nadu stood at 834 on Thursday evening.
“Thursday saw 96 persons testing positive for corona virus. Out of this, 84 are from the single source event (Tablighi Jamaat conference held in Delhi),” said Rajesh. This means that 763 out of the 834 corona virus positive cases are from single source event.
“We have details of 1480 persons from the State who attended the congregation and returned. Efforts are on to trace all of them.
As on Thursday , full-fledfged containment activities are happening in 34 districts. We have screened a population of 58 lakh till date,” said the secretary.
Alarmed over the spurt in the number of persons tested positive for corona virus, the Government has ordered the procurement of 4,00,000 rapid test kits which would give the test results in 30 minutes while the test kits in service talk a minimum of six hours. This was disclosed by the chief minister while speaking to reporters after meeting the task force committee members. Since the State is not showing any signs of reduction in the corona cases, there has been a demand from all sections in the society for the extension of the lock-down period.
While Governments of Uttar Pradesh and Telangana has asked the Centre to extend the 21-day national lock down by another fortnight, veteran medical scientist Prof B M Hegde and the DMK, Tamil Nadu’s main Opposition party demanded that the lock down period be extended by ‘at least’ one month.
Prof Hegde, a medical scientist with four FRCP degrees (Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians) from Royal Colleges of Physicians in London, Glasgow, Edinburgh and Dublin said that the situation in the country because of corona virus is a serious matter of concern which could be addressed only by a total shut down. “This is an extra ordinary situation and needs an extra ordinary response. Shut down and social distancing are the best options because we do not have any medicines available to treat the COVID-19 disease,” Prof Hegde told The Pioneer.
Prof Hegde, who was honored by the President of India with Padma Bhushan is a veteran of many a medical war, notably the one against the H5N2 pandemic flu which claimed hundreds of lives in London said that it was possible to contain the corona virus with effective measures like social distancing and shut down.
Dr Gautham Sigamani, orthopaedics surgeon and member of parliament from Tamil Nadu said it was the 21-day lock down announced by the Government of India which prevented the spread of corona virus from reaching an alarming situation.
“I would like to see the national lock down extended at least by another 30 days because human lives are more important than other factors,” said Dr Sigamani.