Tamil Nadu Covid-19 wrap: Amid Omicron scare, Stalin urges people to avoid gatherings, follow Covid-19 norms

With Christmas and New Year celebrations round the corner, Chief Minister M K Stalin Friday chaired a high-level consultative meeting with medical, public health experts and top officials at the secretariat to take stock of the Covid-19 situation in the state.

With experts warning that the Omicron strain of the virus may spread if there are large gatherings, Staling appealed to the people to avoid crowding and follow Covid norms strictly.

According to news agency PTI, the Chief Minister said that all shops, commercial complexes and cinemas should compulsorily follow guidelines to prevent the virus spread and adhere to the Standard Operating Procedure.Stalin appealed to the people to avoid gathering in large numbers. People should follow guidelines like wearing mask and maintaining social distance, he said.

As of now, there is no change in relaxations or fresh restrictions put in place by the government.

Mandatory testing for international travellers

Director of Public Health and Preventive Medicine T S Selvavinayagam Friday issued a fresh set of guidelines and said the testing should be done for individuals who had taken up international travel during the last 14 days, healthcare workers with symptoms of Covid-19 and those patients having severe acute respiratory infection (SARI).

All international passengers arriving to the state should self-register on the Air Suvidha Portal before the scheduled travel and also upload a negative RTPCR report of Covid-19, Selvavinayagam said. Each passenger should submit a declaration with respect to authenticity of the report, he said.

Travellers arriving from “at risk” countries should submit sample for post arrival of Covid-19 test and if they are tested negative they would follow home quarantine for seven days. A Re-test on the eighth day of the arrival in the India should be done and if negative, they should further self-monitor their health.

Passengers arriving from “non-risk” countries would be allowed to leave the airport and they should self-monitor their health for 14 days post arrival. Two per cent of such travellers arriving from non-risk countries shall be tested for Covid-19 and they are tested positive, they shall be managed as per laid down standard protocol and samples would be sent for genomic sequencing analysis, he said.

State records 597 Covid-19 cases, 7 deaths

Tamil Nadu Friday reported over 597 new Covid-19 cases and seven deaths, the Health Department said. The death toll reached to 36,714. With over 681 people recovering from the infection, the number of active cases are currenly at 6,798. A total of 1,02,947 samples were tested in the last 24 hours, pushing the cumulative number of specimens examined to 5,67,25,248. Chennai reported 146 cases and Coimbatore reported 90 cases on Friday.

The health department bulletin said that four returnees from the United Kingdom, one each from Africa, Europe and Andhra Pradesh tested positive for the virus.