JOIN USFour more coronavirus positive cases in Tamil Nadu, number rises to 42
The number of people testing positive for COVID-19 virus in Tamil Nadu rose to 42 on Saturday with the blood samples of four more people, mostly with travel history, rendering positive.
Three people, who were quarantined at the isolated ward of Kanyakumari Government Medical College Hospital, died but the government asserted that all three patients, including a 2-year-old child, had underlying conditions. Their blood samples sent for testing haven’t arrived as yet.
The fresh patients are a 42-year-old man with travel history to West Indies, a 49-year-old man who returned from London and 25-year-old youth with travel history to the US. A 60-year-old man from Rajapalayam, who is quarantined at the Madurai Medical College Hospital, doesn’t have any travel history and his contact history is being traced.
Out of 42 patients, two have already recovered completely and discharged from hospital – both are under 14-day home quarantine – while one person passed away. Of the 42, 17 don’t have travel history but 13 of them have had contact with those who returned from abroad or positive COVID-19 patients.
The contact history of the remaining four patients, including a 25-year-old who worked in a shopping mall in Chennai, is being traced, officials said. The government has also embarked on a drive to identify people who returned from abroad after February 15 and have begun home quarantining them – the figure has increased manifold from 15,000 to 43,000 in one day.
The state will implement a containment plan on Sunday which includes demarcating 8 km zone in the radius of the locality where positive patients lived before being shifted to hospitals. “5 km will be the containment zone and the remaining 3 km will be marked as the buffer zone. One health worker has been allotted 50 houses and every household in the zone will be covered on Sunday,” Health Secretary Dr Beela Rajesh said.
The health workers would go door-to-door and check people with symptoms of cold and fever and provide them with masks, she said. The state has so far tested 1,500 samples of which 1,435 are processed and 65 are under process. “1,393 samples are negative, and 42 samples are positive for COVID-19 infection,” an update from the Health Department on Saturday night said.