Chennai Corpn’s COVID cases inching closer to 10,000 mark

According to the data from the Greater Chennai Corporation and the State Health Department, the city now has 9,989 cases till Saturday evening. This is more than 64 per cent of the total COVID-19 cases recorded in Tamil Nadu. “Around 5,500 patients are still in the hospitals,” said an official.

The number of cases in Teynampet zone crossed 1,000, joining the club of Royapuram, Thiru Vi Ka Nagar and Kodambakkam zones. As on Saturday morning, Teynampet had exactly 1,000 cases, of which 565 are active cases. Royapuram, Thiru Vi Ka Nagar and Kodambakkam zones have 1,768, 1,079 and 1,300 positive cases respectively.

Tondiarpet zone that shares borders with Royapuram and Thiru Vi Ka Nagar had 881 cases on Saturday morning, only 119 away from reaching 1,000 cases. So far, 3,791 persons were discharged from hospitals in the city after treatment.

Though the cases are increasing, the civic body has already started to relax restrictions in containment areas. The containment period has also been reduced to 14 days from 28 days. On Saturday alone, the civic body removed 41 areas from the list of containment areas. As of now, there are 594 containment areas in the city.

Also, the civic body has reduced the daily sample testing, and the field-level officials have been directed to collect the samples from kin of the infected persons only if they show symptoms. “Recent instruction is to collect the samples from persons who have symptoms. However, we are instructed to continue to trace the contacts of the infected persons,” a sanitary inspector said. Earlier, the civic body was testing samples from all the family members, contacts and extended contacts of the infected persons.

Corporation Commissioner G Prakash told reporters that there were eight lakh elderly people in the city, of whom two lakh have comorbid conditions. “We are regularly checking their health by calling once in four days. We are tracing the source of the patients effectively. There is no community spread in the city,” he added.