CHENNAI: Tiruvallur district recorded its first case of COVID-19 on Thursday, with the 62-year-old chief of the district unit of the Tablighi Jamaat testing positive for the virus. “He travelled to New Delhi on March 19 in Tamil Nadu Express coach S13 and reached New Delhi on March 21. After spending three days, he took a flight to Chennai and reached here on March 24. He travelled to Tiruvallur in a vehicle of one of his relatives,” an official source told Express.
After his return, the patient is said to have visited a nearby mosque on March 25 around 5.30 pm along with around 20 others.”He also visited a local physician after he started showing symptoms like fever, cough and cold. He has a history of hypertension. However, his condition was stable when he was hospitalised,” said the source. Officials are now tracing his contacts.
The newly formed districts Tirupathur and Ranipet reported seven new cases on Thursday. Among these, one case was from Tirupathur town while two cases were confirmed from Vaniyambadi. All of them had returned from the Delhi event. Officials said contact tracing and mass sanitisation works were being done in the localities. In Ranipet district, Two positive cases were reported from Melvisharam and one each from Panapakkam and Arakkonam. Officials said door-to-door inspection was done in 30,000 houses in Pernambut and Vellore Municipal Corporation areas.
One more person in Puducherry tested positive for COVID-19 taking the tally of active infected persons in the Union Territory to four. The middle-aged woman, who was tested positive on Thursday, is a close relative of a COVID-19 patient who has travel history to the Delhi event. Twenty of the 75 cases reported on Thursday were from Chennai, of which only one patient had not attended the Delhi event -- an indirect contact of a 73-year-old woman from Pammal. Meanwhile, a 52-year-old woman from Purasawalkam, who was undergoing treatment at the Stanley GH, was discharged after she fully recovered. Two mandatory tests showed her negative.
One more Myanmar national tests positive
The number of COVID-19 cases in Tiruvarur district rose to seven after five persons, including a 42-year-old Myanmar national, with travel history to the Jamaat tested positive on Thursday. All the patients are being treated at the Tiruvarur GH. So far, two from Myanmar have tested positive. Meanwhile, one more person tested positive for COVID-19 in Karur district on Thursday, taking the district’s tally to two. Sources said the 58-year-old patient, a resident of Kadavur, had also gone to Delhi. “Around 40 people from Karur had attended the Delhi event. Among them, 37 people have been admitted to the isolation ward in Karur medical college hospital,” sources said.
Jump in south
Health workers conducted door-to-door inspection in Kayalpattinam of Thoothukudi after two people were isolated. One of them is a doctor at Kayalpattinam GH while the other is her husband, who attended the Delhi event. Virudhunagar reported 9 positive cases on Thursday. Two Paramakudi men who returned after from the Jamaat tested positive. According to the district collector, around 35 people from the district had attended the meeting and 19 of them have so far returned. The two confirmed cases in the district belonged to this group. In Tirunelveli, meanwhile, one more person, a 22-year-old youth tested positive.
Man jumps home quarantine, caught and admitted to hosp One Surampatti resident who was asked to undergo home quarantine, jumped the rule and absconded for a while before an alert police secured him and admitted to the Perundurai IRT hospital. Sources said he had been in contact with a COVID-19 patient. Meanwhile, the district reported six fresh cases on Thursday. All the affected persons had attended the Delhi event, said officials. They are among the 28 people who were admitted to the isolation facility in Perundurai IRT Medical College. (With inputs from Tiruvarur, Karur, Erode, Thoothukudi, Tirunelveli, Ramanathapuram, Virudhunagar, and Vellore)
Some more
Cuddalore: As many as 41 persons who attended the Nizamuddin Markaz gathering in Delhi have been admitted at GH suspecting COVID symptoms
Villupuram: Sixty eight persons from Villupuram who had attended the Tablighi Jamat have been identified
Coimbatore: Municipal Administration Minister SP Velumani warned people not to give communal or caste link to COVID-19
Nagappatinam: AN Islamic group in Vedaranyam has alleged Islamophobia and complained after a WhatsApp message went viral