As Tamil Nadu reported record spikes in COVID-19 cases on Sunday and Monday, Chennai accounted for a lion’s share with 1,768 cases reported over the two days.
The state has so far reported 184 fatalities due to the disease of which Chennai accounted for 128.
The Hindu reported the Chennai Corporation was working on ramping up medical facilities in the city by setting up its largest COVID-19 care centre in Kesava Pillai Park, Pulianthope to house 1,728 patients. The corporation has also reportedly identified 47 colleges to convert into additional care centres while fever clinics have been set up in all localities.
On Monday, Tamil Nadu reported 1,162 positive cases, the second consecutive day of 1,000 plus cases, taking the infection count to 23,495, health authorities said.
Of the 1,162 cases, there were 50 returnees from other states including 32 from Maharashtra, the health department bulletin said.
Chennai accounted for 964 cases, which took the state capital’s virus tally to 15,770.
On Sunday, Tamil Nadu had 1,149 new cases in which Chennai topped the list with 804 cases.
The city’s commissioner said Chennai’s Tondiarpet and Royapuram alone had about 200 cases each on both the days.
As of Monday, Royapuram had 1,377 active cases while Tondiarpet had 1,101.
City commissioner G Prakash said vulnerable members of the population, such as the elderly and people with co-morbidities, were being temporarily moved from areas with a large number of cases to quarantine centres to avoid infection, The NewsMinute reported.
Testing people travelling from Chennai to other zones
The government had on Sunday extended the lockdown till June 30 in the state, albeit with new set of relaxations including allowing public transport, a day after the Centre announced “Unlock 1.0” for graded exit from the lock-down.
The Tamil Nadu government identified eight zones to allow people’s movement, opening up public transport in all but the four worst-affected districts of Chennai, Chengalpattu, Kancheepuram and Tiruvallur. The zones were created combining nearby districts.
According to Health Department guidelines, testing of incoming individuals in intra or inter-district movement within a zone is not required.
However, “testing (will) be done only for those coming with symptoms,” when people travel from one zone to another, except Chennai, it said. For those moving from Chennai to other zones, testing will be done for all, irrespective of whether the person had symptoms or not, it said.
While intra-state passenger train services began in Tamil Nadu on Monday, intra-state bus and train services to and from Chennai and adjoining Chengelpet, Kancheepuram and Tiruvallur districts, were not operated in view of comparatively high number of virus cases.
Of the 22,333 positive cases as on May 31, Chennai accounted for 14,802, Chengelpet 1,177, Kancheepuram 407 and Tiruvallur 948 which is a whopping 77.61% of all the positive cases in Tamil Nadu.
People returning from Chennai test positive in Northeast
Arunachal Pradesh reported its fifth COVID-19 case on Monday after a 26-year-old student who returned to the state from Chennai tested positive for the novel coronavirus, a senior official said.
On Sunday, 45 people who returned to Tripura from Chennai tested positive for COVID-19, taking the total number of cases in the state to 316, Chief Minister Biplab Kumar Deb said.