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Wary of clusters, Tamil Nadu plans to curb crowds at public places
After consulting experts last week, the Tamil Nadu government ordered that all religious places will remain closed from Friday to Sunday to avoid large gatherings.
Even as Tamil Nadu’s average daily Covid-19 case count has been around 2,000-mark for the last few days, health officials said they are concerned about increasing gatherings at temples, hospitals and markets, particularly after a new cluster was detected following an event at a temple in Chennai where 24 attendees out of the 300 tested have reported positive in the last three days. One of the infected, a 47-year-old woman, who also had diabetes and was unvaccinated, succumbed to the virus on Wednesday.
“Strategy wise, we are analysing the causes of spread. We find that sources of infections are streets adjacent to main marketplaces, people visiting hospitals without following protocols like mask compliance and mass gatherings at religious places,” said health secretary J Radhakrishnan.
After consulting experts last week, the Tamil Nadu government ordered that all religious places will remain closed from Friday to Sunday to avoid large gatherings.
A particular zone number 9 (Teynampet) in Chennai, where a major private hospital is located, has been reporting new cases continuously. “People rent places near the hospitals to stay for their treatment and that is leading to a spread,” a civic official said.
Till August 10, Coimbatore district in the western region was reporting the highest number of daily cases, but on Wednesday, Chennai overtook it marginally. “In the western region, we found that marriages, funerals and functions were being organised flouting the restrictions on the number of attendees, this has led to the increase,” the health secretary said.
In the past two week, cases in Tamil Nadu have marginally increased but fresh cases have ranged between 1,800 and 1,900. “We have alerted all districts that these increases can’t be taken lightly. They are taking it seriously due to which the increase in cases has not been geometric. In the next 100 days we need to vaccinate more people to prevent a wave,” Radhakrishnan said.
On Wednesday, he told reporters that many of the people who had attended the gathering at the Chennai temple were not vaccinated, leading to the rise in cases. “Every day, we are identifying 10-20 clusters in various places and stopping the spread,” he said.
Starting August 5, Tamil Nadu imposed restrictions on those entering from Kerala. The two states share 13 points of entry just in Coimbatore. Kerala constitutes a major caseload in India and arrivals from there have to produce either a negative RT-PCR test report or evidence of double vaccination. “We are obviously having cases in border areas as people are frequently moving,” said an official not wishing to be named. “We are focussing on frequent interstate travellers and encouraging them to get fully vaccinated.”
At least 19 districts in the state – including Chennai and adjoining Thiruvallur, Chengalpattu and Kancheepuram, and western and central districts like Coimbatore, Erode, Thanjavur, Trichy and Cuddalore –are of main concern in the state, health officials said.
“For now localised clusters are emerging and there is no general upward trend,” said Dr Prabhdeep Kaur, deputy director, National Institute of Epidemiology. But these small clusters have the potential to cause general transmission if they are not contained, she warned.
On Thursday, Tamil Nadu reported 1941 new cases, taking the total active cases to 20,399. A total of 33 people died of the infection in the state, taking the toll to 34,428, according to state health department data. Coimbatore reported 249 new cases followed by Chennai (217 new cases) the highest in the state.
