The Greater Chennai Corporation has sent 2,300 outreach workers to contain COVID-19 in slums of the city, said Corporation Commissioner G. Prakash.
Speaking to mediapersons on Friday, he said the city has not reported any major spurt of cases in the last 45 days owing to the community intervention programme. Each outreach worker had to cover 300 houses every day. The number of outreach workers was to be doubled, he said.
“City’s slums have 26 lakh residents who do not have resources to prevent the spread of the disease. Outreach workers are creating awareness. A total of 92 NGOs have been roped in. The spread will be controlled,” Mr. Prakash added.
The Corporation intensified testing in all 15 city zones. “Facilities have increased the number of daily tests from 5,000 to 10,000. This includes private sector. The Corporation has increased the number of daily tests from 1,500 to 5,000,” he said.
The identified around 3,500 persons with symptoms of COVID-19 on Friday, when compared with 600 a few weeks ago. The civic body has planned to develop Anna University as a COVID-19 Care Centre.
“Madras Medical College will take over buildings on the premises of Anna University. The COVID-19 Care Centre in Anna University will have 1,500 beds. The original proposal was to develop 2,000 beds for positive patients. But 500 beds are expected to be earmarked for doctors and nurses. It will begin operations in five days,” Mr. Prakash said.
Currently, the city has 17,500 beds in COVID-19 Care Centres and 4,350 patients have been admitted. The centre at IIT-Madras would have 1,200 beds, where currently 4,00 beds have been readied.
