CHENNAI: A single-day lockdown and the upcoming Pongal festival was enough to drive hundreds of people to commercial hubs like T Nagar, Purasawalkam and the Koyambedu market on Saturday. Many were seen without masks and had no regard for social distancing.
Corporation officials said that almost 100% of the staff, especially in Koyambedu market and Ranganathan Street in T Nagar, are fully vaccinated and since corporation staff were busy with the mega vaccination drive, police personnel had a tough task ensuring that people had their masks on.
A corporation official in Koyambedu said everyday, 300-400 random samples are being drawn in Koyambedu and around 24,000 vaccinations have been done in the market area. During the first wave, the Koyambedu market emerged as one of the biggest clusters.
A member of the Koyambedu Market Management Committee said the committee was strictly overseeing mask compliance and only five cases of Covid-19 were reported from the market area during contact tracing by corporation officials. Of them, two were workers and three, visitors.
“Our team is on the field, conducting surprise visits to ensure that everyone is wearing masks,” said the committee member. However, officials said it was not possible to find out exactly how many had picked up infections from the market areas in Koyambedu and Ranganathan Street.
“We do random testing in these areas and if tested positive, it will be reported under the visitor’s home address and zone so cases will be scattered across the city. Since there is no lockdown now, it is difficult to say what the exact source of infection,” said a corporation official.
The Teynampet zone had the most active cases as on Friday, both in numbers (1,934) and percentage (3.5%). It is followed by T Nagar and Koyambedu with 3.2% of all active cases.