Chennai: The Tamilnadu government is considering bringing back containment zones in Chennai city in view of the rising Covid cases, Health Minister Ma.Subramanian said today.
Talking to reporters here, he said the number of daily cases in the city, which stood at 105 on 28 November, touched 115 last week and it went up to 194 yesterday, accounting for nearly one third of the total 619 cases reported in the State.
This showed that the virus was spreading fast in the city, the Minister said and attributed the increase in the case load due to crowding in family functions, while stressing the need to curb the spread.
Stating that there was increase in cases in about 500 of the 36,300 streets in the city, Subrmanian said the government was contemplating to bring back the containment zones if three positive Covid cases were reported in a street.
He appealed to the people not to get panic and urged them to follow the Covid safety protocols like wearing face masks, avoid crowding in public places and maintaining social distancing norms.
The Minister said till date 86 per cent of the people have been administered the first dose in the state. About 58 per cent of the people have taken the second dose and the government was confident that this would go up to 60 per cent before the 17th round of mega vaccination camp on Sunday.
Asked about the number of Omicron positive cases in the State, SubrmanianĀ said it stood at 45 with 11 more testing positive yesterday. The 11 persons included international travellers and their contacts.Ā All the 45 Omicron confirmed cases have taken both doses of vaccine, he added.
Of the 45 confirmed cases of the Omicron variant, 13 were international travellers on arrival, 10 international travellers on the eighth day of testing and 19 contacts of international travellers, while three were not linked to international travellers.
As on date, 24 patients were discharged and 21 were at hospital. While two cases were cross-notified to Kerala and Puducherry, there were nine active cases in Chennai, four in Madurai, two in Tiruvannamalai and one each in Chengalpattu, Kanniyakumari, Salem and Tiruvarur.