TOO MANY VIOLATORS ALSO OF CONCERN

High +ve cases brings central team to city

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

Chennai:26.04.2020

The city recording a high number of Covid-19 positive cases led to the ministry of home affairs declaring the situation ‘serious’. On Saturday, Chennai’s Covid-19 positive count was close to 500, with the city finding a slot among the top ten metros with a high incidence of infection. Another factor worrying the Centre is the high number of lockdown violations in the city – close to 50,000 cases so far.

While experts have suggested maintaining a fine balance between saving lives and saving livelihoods, the Tamil Nadu government has been struggling to enforce strict lockdown and containing the virus spread. As the state government announced total lockdown in Chennai for four days from April 26, an interministerial central team (IMCT) led by National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) additional secretary V Thiruppugazh, arrived in the city on Friday evening to take stock of the city corporation’s anti-Covid operations.

Defending the government’s decision to enforce a complete lockdown, health minister C Vijayabaskar said, “Chennai is a densely populated region. It is a challenge to deal with a pandemic like this in a city with a population of nearly 1.5 crore people.” The health and family welfare department strongly recommended a complete lockdown. “The aim is to break the chain. If we stop people from getting out of their houses in the next few days, then we will be able to push back the virus,” he said.

The high incidence in the city is also because of aggressive testing, said the minister. “We test more than 1,500 people from the city every day,” he said. Meanwhile, after a presentation on the measures being rolled out to check the virus spread at the corporation headquarters Ripon Buildings on Saturday, the team visited a shelter for guest workers at C P Ramasamy Road.

The team quizzed the 53 inmates about facilities provided by the civic body and then visited a public distribution system outlet at Alwarpet to inspect the provisions kit to be given to workers. The team reviewed the ration stock and inspected the Communicable Diseases Hospital in Tondiarpet. It visited the testing centre and quarantine facility besides containment areas in north Chennai’s Royapuram zone and Tondiarpet.

The team members held a preliminary meeting with chief secretary K Shanmugam at the secretariat, followed by interactions with health and Chennai corporation officials.

Other members of the team included Safdarjung Hospital community medicine professor Dr Anita Khokar, National Institute of Disaster Management professor Surya Prakash, Food Corporation of India chief general manager Lokender Singh and Integrated Vaccine Complex CEO Dr V Vijayan.