Tamil Nadu reports less than 900 COVID cases, 114 people tested positive at Chennai's star hotels

CHENNAI: Tamil Nadu reported less than 900 Covid-19 cases on Sunday after around seven months. The State reported 867 cases and 10 deaths on the day taking the tally to 8,20,712 and toll to 12,156.

According to data shared by the Chennai Corporation, 114 employees at Chennai’s star hotels have tested positive for Covid from December 16 to January 2.

Eleven employees from hotels in other categories have also tested positive in this period. 

It may be noted that from December 15 to Saturday, 85 people, mostly staff, had tested positive at the ITC Grand Chola hotel in the city. On Sunday, health officials said another 12 people at ITC Grand Chola had tested positive.

According to Corporation data, 1,623 star hotel employees were tested till Sunday, of which 114 tested positive. In other hotels, 2,769 employees were tested and 11 were found to have contracted the virus. 

Director of Public Health T S Selvavinayagam said that the Corporation staff will contact guests who visited the hotels and tell them to get tested if they have symptoms. “We will test all the people in the hotels where new cases have been reported," he said.

The ITC Grand Chola cluster on December 15 when a chef there tested positive. Since then, the Corporation has conducted fever camps and advised tests for employees and guests.

Dip in new cases

Meanwhile, Tamil Nadu is seeing another dip in new cases after seven months. The State reported 874 cases on May 29. On that day, the State had tested 11,334 samples and 10,569 people. In contrast, on Sunday, Tamil Nadu tested 61,077 samples and 60,743 people.

On Sunday, Chennai reported 236 cases. Chennai's neighbouring districts of Chengalpattu, Kancheepuram and Tiruvallur reported 49, 32 and 45 cases respectively.
Perambalur and Ariyalur reported zero cases on Sunday while 13 other districts reported cases in the single digits.

Three people who came to Tamil Nadu from West Bengal by road tested positive for Covid. On the day no new cases were reported among passengers who had returned from the UK returnees.
After 1,002 people were discharged after treatment, the State had 8,127 active cases.

Meanwhile, two private labs, G Kuppuswamy Naidu Memorial Hospital, Coimbatore and Genoseq Diagnostics, Chennai have recently been approved for Covid-19 testing.

According to the media bulletin issued by the Directorate of Public Health, all the deceased had comorbid conditions.