Of the total 4,150 fresh infections reported from all over Tamil Nadu on Sunday, Chennai accounted for 1713, pointing to a slight reduction in the numbers, which was attributed to the efforts of the government.
State Health Secretary J Radhakrishnan, speaking to media persons at Porur where he along with Health Minister C Vijaybhaskar inspected a quarantine centre, said the spread of Covid19 had been brought under control to some extent in Chennai, where one official was monitoring 150 people.
Earlier, 9000 of the 39,590 streets in Chennai had infections but now it had been brought down to 8000, he said, adding that it was the organization of fever camps and aggressive testing that helped tackle the pandemic.
Stating that there was good public cooperation for Sunday’s total lockdown across the State when only medical services and milk supply were allowed, he asked the people not to come out of their houses without reason when the lockdown was relaxed on Monday.
Reports from the districts, where TASMAC liquor shops had been opened, said that business was brisk on Saturday with people stocking up for Sunday, thus taking the total sales figures all over the State to 171.20 crore, which was higher than the average sales figure of Rs 130 crore.
Radhakrishnan said that people’s cooperation was of paramount importance in handling the pandemic situation, stressing on the need for wearing face masks and maintaining social distance and urging them to go for testing in one of the fever camps or any other government centre without waiting for three days or more if they symptoms.
Meanwhile, the government received one lakh PCR kits used for testing, taking the total stock to 5.6 lakh kits. Orders have been placed for 10 lakh kits and hence more tests could be carried out continuously in the State.
Elaborating on the other efforts taken by the government, Radhakrishnan said that plasma treatment has been proved to be a success. In the Rajiv Gandhi Government General Hospital (RGGGH) 20 patients underwent the therapy and 18 of them were cured of Coronavirus, he said and called upon people who had been cured of the disease to donate plasma.
Intensive testing would be carried out in Madurai and Thiruvannamalai, where the number of infections was shooting up, he said. Madurai had 308 new infections and Thiruvannamalai 141 on Sunday.
Other towns and cities that reported high numbers were Chengalpattu 274, Kanchipuram 152, Thiruvallur 209, Vellore 179, Villupuram 109 and Virudhunagar 113.
Minister Vijaybhaskar and Radhakrishnan also inspected the Thiruvallur Government Medical College Hospital on the Coronavirus prevention efforts taken there.
Meanwhile the number of MLAs testing positive for Covid-19 in the State rose to 10. Five of them are from the ruling AIADMK – Amman Arjunan (Coimbatore South), K P Anbalagan (Minister for Higher Education), Palani (Sriperumbudur), Sathan Prabhakar (Paramakudi) and Kumaraguru (Ulundurpet) – while the rest are from the DMK. The DMK MLAs are: Vasantham Karthikeyan (Rishivandiyam), R T Arasu (Cheyyur), K S Masthan (Gingee) and Thangapandian (Rajapalayam), besides J Anbalagan (Chepauk-Tiruvellikeni), who passed away recently in Chennai.
