57 more test positive in T.N.; highest single-day rise

Fifty of the patients had taken part in a conference in Delhi; total count is 124

01/04/2020, SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT,CHENNAI

Taking no chances: The house of a person, who attended a religious congregation at a centre in Delhi, being sanitised at Velladichivila, near Nagercoil, on Tuesday. PTIPTI

Tamil Nadu recorded its highest ever single-day rise in the number of persons testing positive for COVID-19 on Tuesday: a total of 57 persons tested positive, taking the total tally to 124.

Of them, 50 — all men — had travelled to Nizamuddin in Delhi to take part in a conference in March. Twenty-two of them were from Tirunelveli; 18 from Namakkal district (12 from Namakkal, one from Paramathi Velur and five from Rasipuram); three from Villupuram; two from Madurai; four from Kanniyakumari and one from Thoothukudi.

All patients are undergoing treatment in isolation wards of government medical college hospitals.

The Health Department has traced 515 of the 1,131 persons, who returned after the conference in Nizamuddin, to various districts of the State.

Health Secretary Beela Rajesh made an appeal to the remaining persons to come forward and report to officials so that they could be quarantined, thereby preventing transmission to their family members and the community.

“If we identify them [people who returned from Delhi after attending a conference] and isolate them and cordon off the area, further spread in Tamil Nadu can be prevented,” Chief Secretary K. Shanmugam told reporters. He also said some of those who returned had either switched off their phones or left for some other location.

Dr. Rajesh said many of them returned to the State by flights and trains, while some of them visited other States and returned by road.

“Intensive containment plans were rolled out in all areas, where the persons, who had returned from Nizamuddin and tested positive, resided. We are tracing the contacts of all 515 persons, and have cordoned off the localities. We are in the process of involving the police in tracing the others. This is why we have requested those who had attended the conference to come forward. Even if they have travelled to some other State, they can inform us,” Dr. Rajesh added.