CHENNAI: In what may come as a relief to city residents fearing a third wave of Covid-19, street clusters in the city are continuing to reduce. The city corporation’s early detection mechanism has paid off with no streets in the city having over 10 Covid cases at present, say corporation officials.
Compared to last week when there were 25 streets with over five cases, 61 streets with over four cases, and 124 streets with three or more cases, it has now reduced to 20 streets with over five cases, 61 with over four cases, and 111 streets with three or more cases.
Two of the major strategies that have helped the corporation control emerging clusters are repeated testing and sending almost all cases to facility quarantine instead of allowing home quarantine, according to senior corporation officials.
“For example in Arcot road, there were 17 cases just over a week ago. Now, there are none. We’re re-sampling in a number of cases when a family member may have tested negative in RT-PCR on day 1. In these cases, we test them again after 7 to 10 days even if they don’t have symptoms,” said Bhupesh N, zonal health officer of Teynampet.
The number of streets with active cases were 872 in the previous week and now it stands at 834. Last month, the city had over 1,000 streets with active cases. Deputy Commissioner (Health) of the Chennai Corporation Dr Manish Narnaware said micro-containment measures helped in thwarting emerging clusters.
Marriage halls fined for violating Covid norms
The corporation has inspected over 5,700 events in marriage halls and of them, 455 functions were found violating Covid-19 protocols. The civic body has imposed a fine of `8.6 lakh on them, said a release. ENS