IT and ITES companies located in the Chennai Police jurisdiction area can now open for operations with 10 per cent staff, who should be provided company transport facility, the State government announced on Thursday.
However companies situated within containment areas would not be allowed to function, the official press release said, adding that the government’s efforts in combating the Coronavirus had led to the State registering the highest recovery rate and the lowest death rate in the country.
Even the five-member Central team, led by Aarthi Ahuja, an official from the Union Health and Family Welfare Department, reportedly expressed satisfaction over the various steps taken by the government in handling the pandemic situation.
The team, which started its visit on Wednesday evening, held discussions with the Health Minister C Vijaybaskar, Health Secretary J Radhakrishnan and other officials at the Government Guest House. They also visited many of the medical facilities for Coronavirus treatment in the city like the Rajiv Gandhi Government General Hospital and the King’s Institute.
They visited some quarantine centres to ascertain how the people were taken care of there by enquiring with those admitted at the centres about the food and other facilities. The discussed with officials and doctors the reasons for the increase in spread in other districts.
In the evening the team members held a meeting, through video conference, with Collectors of the districts that have been showing an increase in the number of infections.
Some of the districts that had more infections than usual were Kallakurichi 254, Virudhunagar 289, Thiruvallur 364 and Coimbatore 98. Some of the other districts that continued to have high infection figures were Madurai 262, Thoothukudi 196, Tirunelveli 110 and Chengalpattu 169.
Chennai had 1216 new cases as against the State total of 4,231 and 23 deaths against the State total of 65 on Thursday when the Corporation Commissioner met traders and those owning small businesses to brief them about the precautions to be taken to prevent the spread of Coronavirus.
The Commissioner is reported to have told the traders and businessmen that in the light of new studies suggesting that Covid-19 could spread through air, they should ensure that social distancing in their establishments and elsewhere too was maintained at six feet.
In another unrelated incident, 23 security personnel at a star hotel in the city tested positive, sending panic waves among officers as the hotel was used to accommodate officers from the city and outside. The hotel was sanitized.
Similarly, 28 residents of the mental hospital in Kilpauk too tested positive, impelling the hospital authorities to create a separate ward to quarantine them.
