Chennai: Following incidents of quarantined people and even Covid-19 confirmed patients giving a slip, the Tamilnadu government has decided to take the tech route to address the issue.
The government will geofence home isolated patients and quarantined contacts to ensure isolation norms are followed. Strict action will be taken against the violators.
Tamil Nadu Chief Secretary K Shanmugam has directed the administrators of Chennai and neighbouring districts to fortify the Greater Chennai Police limits with multi-layer checking during a 12-day intense lockdown between 19 and 30 June.
‘The main objective of this lockdown is to restrict the movement of people within the area and to outside to reduce the disease spread,’ the top bureaucrat said in the letter.
He added: ‘It is very critical to ensure strict enforcement of the restriction of movements both internal and also movement to outside the area, while at the same time the administration shall focus on the other issues like strengthening the surveillance and survey of the containment areas/quarantined houses and organising fever camps in areas outside containment area for the early detection and testing of Covid-19 suspected persons.’
According to Shanmugam, the focus should also be on streamlined testing, patient management, effective contact tracing, quarantine and containment area management and ensuring the smooth supply of essentials in the quarantine houses and in the containment area to make the lockdown a success.
‘Ensure 100% identification of all home contacts and other contacts and quarantine them within 24 hours. Use Aarogya Setu or tele-consultation of police for tracking to ensure contact tracing is complete without omission,’ he said.