New infections in the state hovered close to the 5000 mark with 4965 cases and Chennai alone accounting for 1130 cases as various State Ministers, involved in overseeing the Coronavirus control work, declared that the spread has been brought under control in the capital.
Fisheries Minister D Jayakumar said that only five per cent of the people tested for Covid-19 were testing positive nowadays in both slums and other areas. Earlier, if 100 persons were tested, there would be 45 positive cases.
Also, the number of people returning home after treatment of Coronavirus infection had gone up considerably, Jayakumar said after inspecting a fever camp in Madhavaram. The total lockdown on Sundays had helped bring down the infection rate, he added.
People coming to Chennai from other districts were being quarantined for 14 days, Corporation Commissioner G Prakash said.
He speaking after a meeting of the 79 Market Management Committees and the 37 monitoring committees that had been set up to regulate the functioning of markets and other shops. Prakash said that of the total 4,94,149 travel requests, citing unavoidable reasons like medical treatment, marriage, death and so on, received by the authorities, 1,61,754 were cleared.
At the meeting of the committees at Ripon Building, preventive measures like wearing of facemask, maintaining social distance and use of sanitisers were stressed and the committees were urged to ensure that it was widely followed in all the markets and shops.
Revenue Minister Udhayakumar, who revived the functioning of field workers at Tiruvottiyur, said that facemasks would soon be provided free to ration card holders. He urged the people to take precautions and added that normalcy can return only after a medicine was discovered for the infection.
Meanwhile, Rajiv Garg, the Director of General of Health Services under the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, has issued a circular to all authorities to prevent the ‘inappropriate use of N-95 masks.’ Use of valved respirator N-95 masks was detrimental to the measures adopted for preventing the spread of Coronavirus as it does not prevent the virus from escaping out of the mask.
In Chengalpattu, a TASMAC manager who is also the secretary of the district’s TASMAC salesmen association died due to Coronavirus. Even the number of infections in Chengalpattu district was 256 on Tuesday.
Top figures from other districts were Coimbatore 176, Kanchipuram 262, Kanyakumari 159, Madurai 158, Ranipet 173, Theni 131, Thiruvallur 366, Thiruvannamalai 163, Thoothukudi 269, Tirunelveli 127, Vellore 160 and Virudhunagar 360.
