GCC to barricade streets with more than 3 COVID cases

With daily COVID cases in the city crossing 200, the Greater Chennai Corporation has decided to initiate containment measures by barricading streets with more than three active cases.

In an instruction to zonal health officers, the civic body headquarters has urged them to start barricading streets with restricted movement. Also, officials have been requested to personally analyse the active cases and plan containment. “Seniors have warned field officials of action if they fail to initiate containment measures. We have also asked for strict implementation of mask adherence and quarantine norms, “a field official said.

As per the civic body data, during the last 10 days (till Saturday), the city reported 1,517 cases from 1,373 streets. Of the 1,517 streets, 1,269 streets have one case each and 74 streets have 2 cases each. Also, 20 streets have three cases each and 10 streets have more than 3 cases. “The instruction is to barricade the 10 streets that have more than 3 cases. This will begin from Monday, “the official added.

During the early days of the pandemic, the civic body was barricading streets which reported even one case. Later, the containment zone strategy was relaxed following the decrease in cases and the civic body was barricading streets with three or more index cases. Barricading of streets stopped by December. The city has more than 39,000 street

The Corporation has decided to employ domestic breeding checkers (Malaria workers) to create door-to-door awareness on getting COVID-19 vaccine.

Meanwhile, Health Department data suggestd that the test positivity rate in the city is increasing. Between February 5-11, the city had a test positivity rate of 1.4 per cent. The test positivity rate was 1.3 per cent and 1.5 per cent between February 12-18 and February 19 to February 25 respectively. The positivity rate increased to 1.7 per cent between February 26 and March 4.

Tamil Nadu recorded a total of 567 new cases of COVID-19 on Sunday, taking the count of the total number of positive cases in the State so far to 8,55,121.

Meanwhile, Chennai reported a total of 251 new cases of COVID-19 and Coimbatore recorded 49 cases on Sunday. Among other districts, Chengalpattu recorded 45 new cases of COVID-19. Among other districts, Ariyalur, Kallakurichi and Tirupattur had no new cases of COVID-19.

One more death due to COVID-19 was reported in Tamil Nadu at a private hospital in Chennai. The deceased had several comorbidities and passed away on Saturday morning. The total number of deaths linked to COVID-19 in Tamil Nadu has reached 12,518.

Another 521 people were discharged from several hospitals across the State on Sunday, taking the total number of recoveries in Tamil Nadu to 8,38,606. Currently, there are a total of 3,997 active COVID-19 cases in the State. The numbers of samples tested on a daily basis have increased by at least 5,000. In the past 24 hours, a total of 55,116 more samples were tested for COVID-19 and 54,841 more people were tested for the same.