90-day plan to survey every city house for Covid-19 begins today

Siddharth.Prabhakar@timesgroup.com

Chennai:5.4.2020

Starting Sunday, health workers of the Greater Chennai Corporation will survey every house within the city limit for people with fever, flu or other symptoms of Covid-19.

For this, 10 lakh houses in the city have been divided into 13,100 clusters of 75 to 100 houses each, and each cluster would be surveyed by 16,000 workers, said local bodies minister S P Velumani after holding a review meeting at the Ripon Buildings on Saturday. The exercise would be carried out every day for the next 90 days, he said. The plan is part of a new set of measures to be implemented by the civic body to stop the spread of Covid-19 infection. As on Saturday, Chennai district had 88 positive cases. If it is a regular fever or flu, health workers would give medicines or refer the individual to the nearest primary health centre.

Shops in TN to remain open only till 1 pm

With more positive cases emerging across TN, the CM on Saturday announced that people would be allowed to to buy commodities only between 6am and 1pm from Sunday. Hitherto, grocery and vegetable shops and fuel pumps were allowed to operate between 6am and 2.30pm. The CM said the move was aimed at controlling movement. “Those who violate the order will face strong legal action,” EPS said, a day after warning of stringent enforcement of the prohibitory order.

Workers will get safety kits & pay of ₹15k/mth: Min

However, if further treatment is required, the person would be referred to the nearest government hospital, Velumani said.

Every detail about fever or flu would be tabulated and a database would be created after each day’s survey for further study, the minister said.

The workers would be given proper training on the kind of questions to ask and details to be collected and safety kits including suits, gloves and masks would be given to them. The workers would paid ₹15,000 per month for this, the minister said.

GCC has already started a micro containment plan in many areas of the city where a cluster of cases were found and barred traffic in those areas to curtail movement of citizens. The number of such areas may increase further.

Contact cases of those affected by Covid-19 in the city have been quarantined and are being watched closely.

The GCC has conducted awareness training for 447 private doctors and around four lakh posters on proper washing of hands had been distributed to people.

So far, 23,308 people who have come from foreign countries to Chennai have been home-quarantined for a period of 28 days. Of this, 3,571 people have already completed their quarantine period.

Order for procurement of 11.5 lakh masks has been placed, and four lakh masks has been supplied. Doctors have been provided 1,000 N-95 masks. Workers have been given 14,700 gloves, the minister said.