Covid cases at Sathya Sai Medical College surge to 42; IIT cases drop

CHENNAI: With at least 42 cases of Covid getting reported at Sathya Sai Medical College, the cluster cases reached 72 on Saturday. Tamil Nadu, meanwhile, reported 89 cases on the day, including one each from Malaysia and Singapore.

The Health department is monitoring the clusters and the containment measures are in place at Sathya Sai Medical College, Health officials said.

A total of 927 saturation test samples were taken from the college of which 42 were tested Covid positive. Till Friday, 29 cases were reported at the college, sources said.

Health Secretary J Radhakrishnan said, “With cases continuing to surge in the campus, we have taken samples from all staff and students. To prevent the spread of virus, positive cases have been isolated. They are being given treatment and contacts cross notified wherever applicable. As they have been vaccinated against Covid, there was no need for hospital admission.”

He said so far 1.4 crore people are due for second dose of vaccine, and 40 lakh people are yet to get inoculated for the first dose. Also, over 10 lakh frontline workers are eligible for precautionary dose.

The state has at least 1.26 crore vaccination doses in stock, so the public are requested to utilise the mega vaccination camp across the state on Sunday.

On the other hand, IIT Madras cluster is now under full control. While there are 20 active cases, 197 patients have been discharged.

Meanwhile, Chengalpattu recorded the highest number of fresh Covid cases on Saturday with 42 infections, followed by Chennai 30 and Kancheepuram 5. Coimbatore, Tiruvallur, Tiruchy and Vellore reported two cases each, while Virudhunagar and Cuddalore had one case each.

After 17,701 samples were tested on Friday, the test positivity rate (TPR) increased to 0.4 per cent, of which Chengalpattu and Chennai reported the highest TPR with 1.7 per cent and 1.6 per cent respectively.

At least 64 patients recovered from Covid and were discharged from various hospitals on Saturday, taking the discharge tally to 34,15,782.