Journalism of Courage
The spread of Covid-19 has been rampant in Chennai and neighbouring districts of Tamil Nadu with several private and government institutions, colleges and other commercial entities reporting clusters in the past few weeks.
In Vellore, 137 kilometers away from Chennai, in one such incident, as many as 200 medical staff, including doctors, nurses working at Christian Medical College and Hospital (CMC), have tested positive for the virus. The CMC, Vellore, is one of the biggest medical facilities in the state, and many patients from other districts and states undergo treatment on a day to day basis.
Speaking to Indianexpress.com, District Collector P Kumaravel Pandian said the cases didn’t shoot up in a single day and the results are an accumulation of all the tests that were carried out in the past few days.
Vellore Corporation City Health Officer Dr. Manivannan Thiyagarajan said they have instructed the hospital to avoid non-life-threatening surgeries and online booking for other treatments, outpatient visits, etc.
“There are around 15,000 medical staff (including all categories) who are associated with the functioning of CMC. In the last 10 days, about 200 of them have tested positive for Covid-19. There is a quarters inside the hospital, so some of them are in-home isolation, some of them are admitted to the hospital in the COVID ward. Based on the severity of the condition, they have been provided treatment as per the guidelines,” he said. He added that there will be no hindrance in providing necessary emergency medical treatment to the patients.
Further, Dr. Manivannan said that the samples of those who were in contact with the hospital staff are sent for testing. “Those who had tested positive on January 1, might have got cured and discharged. It’s not a single-day procedure, the hospital management are routinely carrying out the tests and we are closely coordinating with them,” he added.
On Sunday, Tamil Nadu reported more than 12,000 cases with Chennai contributing to half of them. Among the 12,895 cases, the capital city recorded 6,186. Chengalpattu (1,512), Thiruvallur (702), Coimbatore (608) recorded other maximum cases. A total of 1,808 got discharged on Sunday leaving 51,335 active infections. With 12 causalities, the toll reached 36,855. The positivity rate of the state stood at 8.69 per cent.
