110 new COVID-19 patients in TN; Delhi event's attendees report voluntarily

The Tabliqi Jamaat conference in the national capital seemed to have emerged as the hotspot for COVID-19 infections in Tamil Nadu with another 110 attendees of the religious event testing positive for coronavirus on Wednesday.

This takes the number of positive patients from Nizamuddin cluster in the state alone to 190 even as the total tally went up to 234, including six recoveries and one death, placing Tamil Nadu at third position after Maharashtra and Kerala.

And, more than 500 people who had gone to Delhi to participate in the conference earlier this month voluntarily reported to hospitals across the state on Wednesday, heeding to appeals from the Tamil Nadu government. So far, 1,103 of the 1,500 attendees of the conference from Tamil Nadu have been brought under the ambit of COVID-19 testing following hospital quarantine.

With 300 people still believed to be in Delhi, the state government has managed to identify more than 95% of the participants as it focused its entire energy on the Nizamuddin cluster since Sunday. Health department officials said they expect another 80 to 90 people to report to hospital by Thursday.

Health Secretary Dr Beela Rajesh said all 658 of the 1,103 people who attended the Delhi conference have been tested till Wednesday and blood samples of remaining 445 people will also be sent to labs for testing. With the fresh numbers, a total of 25 districts in the state have been affected by COVID-19 virus.

As the government made an appeal on Tuesday night asking attendees of the meeting to report themselves to authorities after massive efforts to track them by dialling their mobile phones failed, collectors in 19 districts literally burnt the midnight oil as a steady stream of people came to hospitals and opened up about their travel history to Delhi.

“1,103 people who took part in the Delhi conference are now in (hospital) isolation and it was a coordinated effort. After our appeal, a lot of them came forward and declared themselves. This is much more than what we were expecting. We are thankful to them,” Dr Beela Rajesh said.

Despite the appeal, the lockdown has also helped in ensuring that attendees of the conference are tracked. Since the Nizamuddin cluster has 190 positive patients, the government has decided to expedite its containment plan near the residences of these patients from Thursday.

Officials said the containment plan has already been implemented in some of the areas where positive patients from the Nizamuddin cluster have lived. “The containment plan will be expanded now and carried out in all districts where people have tested positive for COVID-19. The plan will be implemented rigorously so as to prevent any further spread of the disease,” a senior official told DH.

The state has so far tested 2,726 samples and has placed 995 people in isolation wards in hospitals, a chunk of them are from the Nizamuddin conference.