Tamil Nadu monitoring Covid-19 situation, says Health Minister Ma Subramanian

“Though Covid-19 cases were detected across many countries in 2019, the first case was detected in Tamil Nadu in March 2020. The cases were single-digit numbers during that period and in the next two years, the cases surged and came up to 36,000 per day in Tamil Nadu. Now, in the last 10 days, the cases have again gone to single digits. Only seven or eight people have tested positive for the virus,” the health minister said.

“There have been no casualties in Tamil Nadu in the last seven months and it was due to the efforts of the chief minister, who spearheaded the vaccination campaign. Close to 96 per cent of the eligible population were administered the first dose of the vaccine and 92 per cent the second dose,” he added.

The health minister said in previous occasions to study the mutation pattern, the state government had been sending samples to the ICMR’s laboratory in Mumbai, Hyderabad, Pune but now everything can be studied at its whole genome sequencing laboratory at the public health laboratory in Chennai.

“Though a variant of Covid-19 is spreading in other countries like China, Brazil, Japan, France, in Tamil Nadu, the cases are in single digits only. We are closely monitoring the situation,” the minister added.