Chennai: At least 3 more people have tested positive for the UK variant of Coronavirus in Chennai. This takes the total number of people testing positive for the new virus in Chennai to 4, Tamil Nadu Health Secretary Dr. Radhakrishnan told news agency ANI.

He mentioned that two hotels that had reported an increase in Coronavirus cases have also reported a drastic decrease in infections. “Two hotels in Chennai had a slight increase in COVID19 cases but there also cases have come down drastically. Sample testing is being done across many hotels,” the Tamil Nadu Health Secretary said.

On Wednesday, a cluster of COVID-19 positive cases was reported from a luxury hotel, The Leela Palace, in Tamil Nadu’s Chennai. Twenty employees tested positive for COVID-19 in the hotel which accounts for 10 per cent of the staff, a Greater Chennai Corporation (GCC) official had said. The Leela Palace hotel located in MRC Nagar was ordered to suspend all its scheduled events and gatherings immediately. The hotel is a prominent spot for high profile business and political meetings in that take place in Chennai.

This came just a day after ITC Grand Chola hotel in Chennai turned out to be a coronavirus cluster. Between December 15 and January 3, as many as 97 persons tested positive for COVID-19 in ITC Grand Chola.

According to the data released by the corporation on Sunday, since December 16 a total of 1,623 employees working in luxury hotels of Chennai have tested positive for COVID-19.

New Coronavirus Strain

Just when our hopes about the vaccine for COVID-19 were becoming a reality, the UK government announced the discovery of a highly contagious new variant circulating in England. The new UK strain has also been detected in UK returnees in India. As per new guidelines issued by the Centre, UK-returned passengers (upon arrival in India) will have to produce a negative Covid-19 certificate from a test done within 72 hours prior to the journey.