JOIN USNine more test positive for COVID-19 in Tamil Nadu; total now 38
Tamil Nadu on Friday saw the largest number of persons testing positive for COVID-19 since the outbreak early this month with samples of nine people, mostly contacts of already confirmed patients, rendering positive.
The tally has now gone up to 38, including the 54-year-old man who passed away and 45-year-old man discharged last week. The state has been witnessing a spike in the number of positive patients in the past few days even as it battles allegations that the adequate number of people are not being tested.
Six out of nine persons, who tested positive on Friday, are contacts of already confirmed patients -- two family members of the 54-year-old man, who died on Wednesday, two contacts of the Thai nationals who came on a pilgrimage, one contact of four Indonesian nationals who are admitted in Salem.
Rest three– a 25-year-old woman who returned to her native Ariyalur from Chennai on March 19, a 73-year-old woman from Pammal here and a 39-year-old man from Anna Nagar -- who tested positive have no contact history. The government did not give any details about how the aforementioned three contracted the virus without any travel history. It also did not give the number of contacts for these three in its daily bulletin.
The Thai nationals, who came to Tamil Nadu on March 11, have directly/indirectly infected six patients who have tested positive, data from the daily bulletin said. The spurt in numbers came on the day the Tamil Nadu government made functional an exclusive 500-bedded hospital to cater to COVID-19 patients in Chennai.
The hospital inside the Government Omandurar Medical College is equipped with isolation ward, step downward, ventilators and an efficient medical team, the government said.
The state has so far placed 15,629 passengers under home quarantine for 28 days and 112 asymptomatic passengers from highly affected countries are being quarantined in quarantine facilities near airport and 277 are under hospital isolation.
“Till now 1,243 samples have been taken from the passengers. The samples of 1,195 passengers are processed of which 1,157 samples are negative, 38 samples are positive for COVID-19 infection and 48 samples are under process,” an update from the Health Department said.