Tamilnadu on Tuesday saw as many as 57 new COVID-19 cases, the highest spike in a single day so far and 50 of them had travelled to Delhi to attend a religious congregation (Tablighi Jamaat) recently, the government said.
The aggregate number of virus cases stood at 124 in Tamilnadu, with at least 77 of them having links to the congregation held in the national capital recently. While the government confirmed seven new cases earlier in the day (of which five men had visited Delhi to take part in the religious congregation), Health Minister C Vijayabaskar confirmed 50 more new cases on his Twitter handle.
Health Secretary Beela Rajesh said of the 50 cases, 45 had travelled to Delhi to participate in the religious meet at the national capital’s Nizamuddin West area. All of them have been admitted to medical college hospitals in Kanyakumari, Tirunelveli, Chennai and Namakkal and are stable, she said.
The government said that of the approximately 1,500 people who took part in the meet in Delhi, 1,131 had returned, 515 were traced and 616 could not be found so far and the rest were quarantined by authorities in Delhi.
The government also said efforts were afoot to ‘isolate’ all the participants of the conference from Tamilnadu soon to stem the further spread of the contagion. A day after Chief Minister K Palaniswami said a number of people from Tamilnadu -part of a group of about 1,500 people- who had been to Delhi recently to attend a meet were infected, the government said that of the seven fresh cases, five men had a travel history to the national capital.
Asked if the five were part of the Tamilnadu group that attended a religious congregation in Delhi, an official replied in the affirmative. Tablighi Jamaat had held a conference in Delhi recently. Officials have appealed to the remaining 616 to come forward and subject themselves to medical tests, to prevent the spread of Covid-19. If they failed to do so, all of them should be found out and strict action should be taken against them. Because, they are posing a grave threat to the whole State.