With all government hospitals in Virudhunagar fast filling up, the district administration is gearing up to ready a COVID Care Centre (CCC) with around 500 beds.
“We have readied 250 beds at the new CCC in Mepco Shlenk Engineering College in Sivakasi. Efforts are on to increase the total number of beds to 500,” Collector R. Kannan said.
The district has recorded around 550 new cases in the last 12 days. As on Saturday, the district had 429 active cases, recording the highest number of positive cases of 100 in a single day.
As the administration has increased its RT-PCR testing facility with equipment borrowed from the same college, the speed of testing has increased.
“While one equipment is used for pooled test, another is used for confirmatory test,” he added.
The district has a huge backlog of around 3,000 samples for which results are expected soon.
The results of most of the samples sent to Tirunelveli, Theni and Sivaganga are likely to come in a couple of days.
Officials expect a sudden spurt in the number of positive cases. The administration is expected to get one more equipment soon from the State Health Department. Virudhunagar district has around 760 beds for COVID-19 patients from Virudhunagar, Sivakasi, Aruppukottai, Rajapalayam and Sattur.
“When the CCC gets ready, we are planning to send all new asymptomatic patients to the CCC and those with moderate and severe symptoms to government hospitals,” Mr. Kannan said.
Meanwhile, the Collector has also planned to make use of unutilised beds in private hospitals for providing treatment to COVID-19 patients.
The administration has asked the private hospitals to take up treatment of patients in their hospitals as per the guidelines of Indian Medical Association.
