As COVID-19 cases surge across Tamil Nadu, the Greater Chennai Corporation (GCC) has increased the number of containment zones in the capital to contain the spread of the coronavirus. The corporation has decided to classify each street with more than three active cases as containment zones and said that there were 1,119 such containment streets in Chennai across the 15 zones.
Among them, Royapuram has 210 streets with more than six cases and 52 streets with more than 10 active cases, according to civic officials. There are some streets which have more than 30 active cases like one near DAV Girls School that has 38 cases, civic officials said.
The Greater Chennai Corporation has decided to implement a perimeter control over streets that have more than six active cases and will employ staff at their entry and exit. However, houses will not be sealed as was done earlier during the first wave of the pandemic.
GCC Deputy Commissioner Alby John, talking to IANS, said, "Only streets with more than 10 active cases are blocked completely and the corporation staff will help them with their necessary requirements."
Around 6,000 'fever workers' have been appointed for extensive surveillance and monitoring of the disease, and the number will be doubled to 12,000 in a week's time. To prevent crowding in hospitals, 12 screening centres for CT scans have already been established. The number of 'fever clinics', on the roadside stands at 50 at present and will be scaled up to 400, taking into consideration the possibility of escalation of the pandemic, officials said.
On Tuesday, Tamil Nadu reported 6,984 new cases of the coronavirus taking the total number of active cases to 49,985. Till now, 9.47 lakh patients have tested positive for the virus in the state. On Tuesday, the state tested 82,236 people for COVID-19. The highest number of new COVID-19 cases emerged from Chennai (2,482), followed by Chengalpattu (771) and Coimbatore (504). The state recorded 18 deaths on Tuesday.