Chennai, June 30 (BPNS)
The Tamil Nadu Public Health department has directed all the colleges and schools in the state to strictly adhere to Covid protocols as the number of active cases has touched 10,000 in the state. The number of fresh cases in the state has also reached 1285 on Wednesday leading to the health department sending an advisory to all the educational institutions, both school education, and higher education institutions.
Director of State Public health department, Dr. T. S. Selvavinayagam told media persons that the educational institutions have to be strictly monitored and the department has sent circulars to all the educational institutions to ensure that students are strictly adhering to Covid protocols.
He said that across the globe people have to wear masks, keep safe distancing, and sanitize regularly to keep the disease at bay. This is in addition to the two doses of Covid vaccines to prevent getting infected.
Tamil Nadu health minister, Ma Subramanian while speaking to BPNS said, “ The only method now is to adhere to Covid -19 protocol and we have been telling this regularly to the people of the state to wear masks, keep safe distancing and sanitize regularly. Everyone should also take the vaccines as the state health department has arranged the facility to take vaccines at the PHCs in all the nook and corners of the state.”
It may be noted that on Wednesday, the number of active cases in the state crossed the 10,000 mark for the first time since February 23, when the third wave was declining. The weekly average in Tamil Nadu on June 1 was 80 while on June 29th the number of fresh cases per day touched 1285.
The state has also increased the number of RT- PCR tests and is presently doing 25000 cases a day. In the first week of June, the number of RT-PCR tests was 14000.
While most people are not worried about the possibility of a 4th wave as they feel that due to the two doses of vaccination, even if they infected by the disease, the attack would be mild. However, health department is worried that if the number of cases increases, the hospitalization will also increase as in some co-morbid cases, hospitalization becomes necessary.
The Directorate of Public Health of Tamil Nadu has identified three categories of people who are not in the state records. Those who take symptomatic treatment after consulting doctors without any tests, those who test at home using the kits available and do not report, and super-spreaders who don’t test and who don’t take treatment and move around in the streets without masks even after having symptoms of the disease.
The state health department is contemplating a strict police monitoring of people which would lead to more adhering to Covid protocols. A senior official in the state health department told BPNS that a high-level meeting of the state health department in which the state health minister will also participate is being called on Thursday at the secretariat to decide on the further course of action.
