No need to panic about corona, says Tamil Nadu government even as cases increase
Chennai: Even as Tamil Nadu Health Minister C Vijayabaskar urged the people not to fear coronavirus and to trust the government's preventive work, the total number of infections in the state crossed the one lakh mark on Friday. The total number of cases stood at 1,02,721 after 4,329 cases were detected on Friday.
Speaking to the media after visiting Stanley Medical College Hospital, Vijaybaskar said that the state had procured 10,000 vials of Remdesivir and was also in the process of getting 3 lakh injections of other drugs.
He said that the government was making arrangements to ensure supply of more oxygen to the hospitals through pipelines as the need for oxygen had surpassed that of ventilators. As of now government hospitals had the capacity for six kilo litre of oxygen, which would be increased to 40 kilo litre, he said.
The government was also looking into the possibility of finding a cure for COVID-19 through Siddha and Ayurveda systems of medicine, he said adding that the number of beds in Stanley would soon be increased to 1200 and another hospital with 500 beds would come up in Tambaram soon.
He requested people not to panic seeing the growing number of positive cases, which he said was because of the rigorous testing in the state. "Investigations are done seriously and contact tracing has led to the number of tests in Chennai alone standing at 10,000 daily. All over the State 33,000 tests are being done," he said.
Vijaybaskar said that intense lockdown in the past two weeks was very helpful in bringing down the rate of infection.Tamil Nadu was the only state that was holding fever camps, he said, adding that 600 camps were being held daily reaching out to 40,000 people.
"The government has sought permission from the ICMR for plasma centres to be set up in Chennai, Madurai and Tirunelveli," he said, stressing on the point that no stone would be left unturned in the fight against COVID-19.
The number of deaths recorded in Tamil Nadu on Friday stood at 64, with 32 of them in Chennai alone. The state-wide discharge figure for the day stood at 2,357. The day’s positive cases in Chennai was 2082, Chengalpattu 330, Madurai 287, Thiruvallur 172 and Kanchipuram 121.
