Chennai Corporation to phase out COVID care centres after dip in caseload

According to a Chennai Corporation official, more than 100 COVID care centers were created in the city by providing beds and other facilities. “However, most of the COVID care centers remain unused since their inception. As of now, only 30 COVID care centers are in use,” he said.

The official added that an instruction has been issued by senior officials of the civic body to start removing beds from unused COVID care centers. As per the civic body data, the city had 13,223 active cases on Monday morning, which is only 11 per cent of the total reported cases.

Chennai Corporation would send patients with severe symptoms to hospitals, while persons without symptoms and comorbid conditions are being sent to home quarantine or COVID care centers. Asymptomatic persons would be sent to COVID care centers if thet lack isolation facilities at their houses.

Of the total active cases in the city, only less than 30 per cent patients are admitted to COVID care centers. It may be noted that the civic body has created more than 35,000 beds in the COVID care centers, excluding the beds in hospitals.

“We have created COVID care centers in the buildings belonging to institutions, marriage halls, schools and new constructed slum clearance board tenements anticipating a huge spike. But, the cases are coming down and we cannot maintain the unused COVID care centers. We have not closed any COVID care center yet,” the official said.

At the same time, the civic body has decided to close down the centers without haste and decided that the phasing out process would be carried out slowly. “We cannot close all the centers at once. We should be ready and prepared for the future,” he added.