Selvapuram still defenseless against virus, cluster grows

Coimbatore: Selvapuram, which is located in one of the oldest parts of the city, is the biggest Covid-19 hotspot that the district has seen so far. The cluster, which continues to swell, was formed some 45 days ago.
Officials say Selvapuram alone accounts for more than 800 Covid-19 cases or 7.7% of total caseload that the district has recorded till date. The impact of the cluster, they say, is much larger.
On July 6, 27 people at Iyappa Nagar at Selvapuram were tested positive for the virus. All of them were working and living next to a gold manufacturing unit in the area. They were made to undergo Covid-19 testing while tracing contacts of 19 people who had earlier tested positive for the virus at Chetti Veedhi and Ashok Nagar in the area. The virus then steadily spread to Savitri Nagar, Sami Iyer New Street, Telungupalayam, Telungu Street and the North Housing Unit.
As the number of cases began increasing exponentially, the city corporation had in July cordoned off the entire Selvapuram area as a containment zone.
However, sealing the area didn’t help much in containing local transmission of the virus, which spread to surrounding areas such as Ponnairajapuram, where 20 people were tested positive, Perur (40) Gandhi Park (27) and Madhampatti, where 12 family members of a jeweller were infected.
Barricades were removed from the area on August 1. Two weeks later, 39 Covid-19 cases were reported from Telungupalayam, Selvapuram and Chetti Street in a single day (August 14). On Thursday too, seven were tested positive for the virus from those areas, exposing complete failure of containment measures in the locality.
In the first 20 days of this month, Selvapuram has recorded 181 Covid-19 cases, Telungupalayam 166 and PN Pudur 147.
A senior corporation health official, who didn’t want to be named, says, “It is a problematic area because of its dense population, and row housing and row shops culture.”
Dr Raja, city health officer, says while they are tracing contacts of positive cases in the locality, there is heavy movement of asymptomatic patients who they miss out because of the dense population. “It is also a commercial hub visited by traders, buyers and workers.”
Since there is no let-up in cases, health officials have decided to focus on strict implementation of mask wearing and hand sanitizing. “We can’t change work conditions or work culture at small shops. We will ask them to wear masks and work on alternate days to maintain social distancing at workplaces,” says a health department official. “We are also planning to increase bed strength and prepare for a possible spike in cases.”
District collector K Rajamani says besides Selvapuram, they are also concerned about the virus spread at Karumbadai in the city’s south zone that had 155 Covid-19 cases as on August 16 and PN Pudur in the west zone, which had 148 cases as on August 14.
“More fever camps will be conducted to identify asymptomatic or mildly symptomatic patients, give them medical care and stop them from spreading the virus further,” the collector told TOI.