CHENNAI: As Tamil Nadu recorded more than 2,000 Covid cases on Saturday, it was found that 34 more students of the National Institute of Skill Training, Guindy, have the disease. Earlier, 18 people from the institute had tested positive.
“About 9 per cent of the 550 students have been infected,” a corporation official pointed out, adding that the cluster was formed as the students didn’t wear masks or maintain physical distance properly. The students have now been shifted to the Athipet Covid Care Centre.
Being asymptomatic, many of them reportedly didn’t believe they were infected. “All of them are young, and joined the institute only in February. They had been moving about freely, and didn’t think much of the coronavirus. We have ruled out the possibility of a recent visitor bringing in the virus,” said an official who didn’t want to be named.
The cluster was detected after a 36-year-old staff showed symptoms and tested positive. Many students attended skill-training classes that needed in-person contact, and every two students shared a toilet in their rooms, sources said. Most of the infected students are from the plumbing department.
Contact tracing poses challenge
Contrasting the cluster at the National Institute of Skill Training, Guindy with the one at the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras (IIT-M), a corporation official said, "There are no primary sources in this case. But in IIT-M, a mess worker tested positive and several students who had come in contact also tested positive." "But here, the mess workers tested negative, and only two staff were found to be positive. All the others who were infected are students," the corporation official explained, adding that contact tracing is the next big challenge the corporation will have to face.