Covid-19 cases continued to surge at IIT Madras as 32 more cases were added on Tuesday, pushing the total tally to 111. Health Secretary J Radhakrishnan said that though there is no need to panic, the public should not let their guard down and should follow Covid-19 safety guidelines.
“In our inspection, we found that people from 13 districts and one from abroad had stayed at a particular hostel. Through that one person, the virus has spread to other departments and hostels. Due to the efforts of the public health department and IIT management, we stopped the spread from becoming an outbreak. Health officers will be taking the samples of the remaining people in the campus in the next few days and isolate them till we get their results,” Radhakrishnan said.
The government has stepped up surveillance and health inspectors have been asked to monitor the travel history of people returning from other states.
According to data issued by the health department, a total of 7,490 students are currently staying in the 19 hostels at the campus. As many as 3,079 samples have been taken and 110 of them have returned positive – officials missed reporting one case in the data.
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The first Covid-19 positive case at the IIT campus was detected from Bhadra Hostel on April 19. Soon, the cases started spreading to neighbouring hostels.
Radhakrishnan said the state has a capacity of 1.16 lakh beds (including oxygen, non-oxygen) and only 18 are admitted in hospitals for treatment. He said only three in a thousand samples are returning positive.
Speaking about other facilities that the government has in place for treating Covid-19 patients, he said the cases are only being reported in nine districts and the rest are without any fresh cases.
The health secretary urged the public who are due for their second vaccine dose and booster doses to get their shots without any further delay.
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