CHENNAI: After a week, the State saw a surge in the number of cases on Sunday with 105 persons, including three PG doctors at Rajiv Gandhi Government General Hospital and two journalists, testing positive. While 46 patients recovered and were discharged from hospitals, a senior doctor who was undergoing treatment for COVID-19 at a private hospital died.
The number of cases in Tamil Nadu now stands at 1,477 and death toll 16. According to hospital sources, the senior neurosurgeon who died on Sunday was 55 years old. His daughter also tested positive. The three PG doctors are contacts of another doctor who had tested positive on Thursday. The officials had closed down the cardiology block in the hospital and shifted the patients to tower II in the premises.
The hospital then asked all PG doctors and his other contacts to go for home quarantine and started testing them. An official said all the PG doctors who tested positive on Sunday were working as a team.Meanwhile, two journalists, including a reporter from a Tamil daily who attended a press conference at DMS on Tuesday, tested positive. Health Secretary Beela Rajesh and department officials had been part of the press meet.
Officials closed the mansion in Triplicane in which the reporter was staying and disinfected the area. They quarantined four other reporters from different media who were staying with him. However, the officials are yet to identify the source of infection. The reporter volunteered for a test after he caught a cold. He tested positive at Rajiv Gandhi Government General Hospital. The other journalist, who tested positive, is working in a Tamil news television channel and lives in a containment area.
On Saturday evening, three members of a fishermen family at Kasimedu tested positive and were taken to Stanley Medical College Hospital. Officials said the 55-year-old woman, her daughter and son, both in their 30s, had no travel history and had never gone out of their area.
