3 panels to oversee Covid-19 vaccination

3 panels to oversee Covid-19 vaccination

1,663 New Covid Cases, 18 More Dead

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

Chennai:22.11.2020

As active cases dropped to 12,916 on Saturday, Tamil Nadu set up three committees to oversee preparations for Covid-19 vaccination such as identifying frontline workers and assessing cold chain space. The state reported 1,663 new cases and 18 deaths, taking the case tally to 7,68,340 and cumulative toll to 11,586.

A state steering committee chaired by chief secretary will meet every month, a state task force headed by the health secretary will meet every 15 days and district task forces headed by district magistrates will meet every week. “Initially,the meetings may take up review of cold chain preparedness and status of database on health workers, while plan for other activities such as site micro planning, IEC plan, capacity building will be added later,” health secretary J Radhakrishnan said.

On Saturday, the northern districts had 7,573 people still seeking treatment followed by 3,115 people in the eight western districts. Active cases in the central zone and south zone were 1,182 and 1,033 respectively.

The number of people who underwent RTPCR tests marginally increased to 68,479 from 67,309 on Friday. Fresh cases in the 11 northern districts dropped below the 1,000 mark, while cases in the three other zones were below 500 on Saturday. The 11 northern districts together reported 58% of fresh cases and 55% of deaths. Together, the eleven districts reported 978 cases and 10 deaths. After the north, new cases were highest in the western districts (404) followed by the 10 southern districts (145 ) and central districts (135).

All districts, barring Perambalur continued to report fresh cases, and hot spot Chennai continued to be on top of the table with 486 cases.

Active cases in Pondy decrease

Puducherry:

The number of active Covid-19 cases, which came down to 602 on Saturday, continued to decline in the Union territory of Puducherry. The territory reported 65 fresh cases even as 82 patients recovered as of 10am on Saturday. The positivity rate of the samples (3,537) tested on Saturday stood at 1.8%. The territory did not report any death due to Covid-19 infection on Saturday. TNN