The district administration today stepped in to contain the spread of COVID-19 in city, and support, coordinate and monitor the Coimbatore Corporation’s action in this regard.
A release issued at the end of a meeting Collector K. Rajamani held at the Collectorate with Coimbatore Corporation and other department officials said he had designated an officer each to the Corporation’s five zones to increase the effectiveness of the steps the civic body took.
He asked the Tamil Nadu Civil Supplies Corporation Regional Manager S. Prasanna Ramasamy to coordinate the activities in South Zone, District Revenue Officer-cum Special Officer P. Menaka to work in North Zone, P.A. Lands Vishnu Vardhini in East Zone, Magalir Thittam Project Officer Selvaraj in West Zone and Tamil Nadu State Marketing Corporation Chief Regional Manager Sadhanaikural in Central Zone.
Besides asking the officers to update him daily of the steps taken, the Collector asked the Corporation Commissioner Sravan Kumar Jatavath to increase the number of tests to ensure early detection of COVID-19 cases, ensure that the test results were available within 24 hours, conduct awareness on safety precautions among the city’s residents and also about the place and timing of fever camps.
The release said Collector K. Rajamani directed the coordination officers to work with police and other department staff to ensure that the Corporation officials on the field diligently followed all COVID-19 containment precautions and that there was no violation in containment zones/quarantined areas.
He also asked the Corporation to keep ready ambulances to take COVID-19 positive persons to hospitals or COVID-19 care centres or to transport them from one facility to another.
‘More triage centres’
In a related development, Coimbatore Corporation threw open two more triage centres – one in West Zone at the auditorium at the Government College of Technology on Thadagam Road and another in South Zone at a wedding hall in Kuniamuthur.
The Corporation had already established such a centre at its Siddhapudur school in Central Zone. It had said the centres would act as the nodal centres or points of first stop for COVID-19 positive persons and the medical officers there would decide where such persons would go – to hospitals or care centres.
One more triage centre was ready – for East Zone – and it would start serving people Saturday onwards, Commissioner Sravan Kumar Jatavath said.
The Corporation had identified seven to eight places across the city where it would establish beds in less than 24 hours if there were to be a spike in positive cases.
And, in those centres, the Corporation would add 1,500 beds.
On the Corporation’s decision to ask commercial establishments to get their employees tested, Mr. Jatavath said it was a must and the Corporation’s order did not mean that the establishments would have to pay for the test.
Pool testing
They could either go in for pool testing which was cheap or make use of the Corporation’s fever clinics/camps, where samples were lifted for tests at no cost.
If during inspection or after COVID-19 case it was found that establishments had not had their employees tested, the Corporation would initiate stringent action.
And, this was necessary because of late, commercial establishments had turned COVID-19 hotspots, he added.