Chennai crosses 1,000 mark after 176 new cases

The death toll has also gone up by one, after a 98-year-old died at Omandurar Medical College Hospital.

Among the cases reported in the city, at least 90 are primary cases while the rest are their contacts. State Health department officials said primary cases were all from the five clusters – those who attended the New Delhi conference, those linked to the Koyambedu wholesale market, journalists, foreign returnees, and those who got infected after the Sunday prayer meet at a home in Thiru-Vi-Ka Nagar zone.

“All contacts of those affected in these clusters are being traced and tested, and are being kept in quarantine,” said an official.

One more death was recorded in the past 24 hours, taking the death toll to 28. Officials said a 98-year-old man from Chennai, who was admitted to Omandurar Medical College Hospital, ied due to the infection at 10.20 am on Friday.

Two more police personnel, including a traffic cop, tested positive in Chennai on Friday, taking the total number of uniformed persons affected to 18. Besides, a ministerial staffer at police State headquarters, was also tested positive. Addressing the media, Health Minister C Vijaya Baskar said more cases are being identified because testing has been intensified across all the districts.

The State has tested 1,29,363 samples so far – about 14 per cent of samples tested in the country. The recovery rate in Tamil Nadu was 54.4 per cent, the highest in the country, while the mortality rate was

1.2 per cent, he added. Among other districts, Chengalpattu recorded eight cases, Tiruvallur six cases and Madurai three.

Chennai Corporation Commissioner G Prakash on Friday said that the civic body would shift vulnerable people including pregnant women, super senior citizens and person with health-related issues to safer quarantine places from containment zones.

“We have already compiled the street-wise data of vulnerable people in the city. We will shift those in the containment zones to safer quarantine places. We are going to shift them because they have more chances of catching the disease. It will help us monitor them closely,” Prakash told reporters here.

The number of positive cases is high in North Chennai, particularly, in Royapuram, Thiru Vi Ka Nagar Tondiarpet, Aynavaram and Pulianthope due to high density of population. To control it, each zone has a team consisting of IAS officer, IPS officer, DRO and medical officer that is working on containment measures. “We are studying the pattern. The cases were not spread across the zone but in a few wards. Even in the wards, it is limited to a few streets.

We have come up with new strategies that we will discuss with the government,” he said. The young and healthy volunteers would be used to deliver essentials to the elderly and the vulnerable people living in the containment zones, he said, adding that anybody entering and exiting the containment zones have to wash their hands at the washbasins made available at such zones.