Another 75 persons tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 infection on Thursday in Tamil Nadu. Except one, the remaining 74 had attended the Tablighi Jamaat conference in Nizamuddin, Delhi. The State now has 309 cases of coronavirus disease (COVID-19), of which 264 took part in the conference.
Health Secretary Beela Rajesh said samples were taken from all the 1,103 persons, who had attended the conference from Tamil Nadu, and a few more samples were under process. A few more persons, who had taken part in the conference, continued to come forward, and details would be available on Friday.
Of the 74 persons, 19 men were from Chennai, 15 from Karur, nine from Virudhunagar, seven from Chengalpattu, six from Erode, five were from Tiruvarur, four from Ranipet, three from Tirupattur, two each from Thoothukudi and Ramanathapuram, and one each from Tiruvallur and Tirunelveli. Apart from them, one person, a resident of Chennai, has tested positive. He was a contact of a previously positive patient — a 43-year-old man of Pozhichalur with travel history to Thiruvananthapuram.
Till now, confirmed COVID-19 cases were reported from 19 districts, and Tiruvallur was added to the list, she added. With Thursday’s count, Chennai topped the list with 46 patients, followed by Erode (32) and Tirunelveli (30).
Scare at mall
Dr. Rajesh said they had traced the source of infection for the 25-year-old woman, who worked in a store in Phoenix Mall in Chennai. She had interacted with a person from Kerala who travelled to Sri Lanka and tested positive for COVID-19, was tracked back to Chennai, and then to Kerala. The largest number of contacts were traced as it was a mall, she said.
While two employees of a store in Phoenix Mall had tested positive earlier, Chennai Corporation put out a tweet that three employees of the store tested positive. However, there was no clarity as the Health Department did not declare any new case from the mall.
As of now, seven patients were discharged after treatment, she added. Officials said a 52-year-woman, a resident of Chennai who had travelled from the U.S., was discharged from the Government Stanley Medical College Hospital. She had co-morbidities, including hypertension.
Containment plan was in full swing with the involvement of 4,585 field workers. Till now, 13,67,534 individuals were screened, she said.
About the State’s preparedness if the pandemic enters Stage 3, she said a think-tank was created with experts.
Special panel
“We have already taken the help of Johns Hopkins and held a video-conferencing session with a community health expert in the U.S. We have involved experts who are doing a lot of projections. There is a separate team under the Chief Secretary that does these projections, how many cases are expected in a worst-case scenario. Based on what that worst-case scenario is, we are trying to calculate what will be our requirement in terms of infrastructure,” she said.
“We are studying projections. These projections included how COVID-19 played out in other countries and how many days it took for the increase in case. We have approximate projections,” she added. The State will soon get six more testing facilities this week, the Health Secretary added. Efforts were on to establish another State-level laboratory. “We have received more number of testing kits. We have capability to test 12,000 samples. Every laboratory has a capacity of doing a minimum of 100 samples a day,” she said. During the lockdown, the aim was to increase testing facilities, conduct maximum testing and maximise infrastructure. COVID-19 testing of persons with severe acute respiratory illness who needed hospitalisation was being done since February. The number of persons under home quarantine in T.N. is 86,342. The State had tested 3,272 samples so far. Of this, 404 samples were under process. Ninety persons were in quarantine centres, and 1,335 persons were admitted to isolation wards of hospitals.
