Tamil Nadu Covid lockdown news live: CM hikes coronavirus incentive-compensation for journalists

Tamil Nadu chief minister MK Stalin on Wednesday revised upwards the incentive to accredited journalists by Rs 2,000 to Rs 5,000 for working despite Covid-19 pandemic. Stalin also doubled the compensation paid to the family of the accredited journalist who had died due to Covid-19. (PTI)

The Union territory of Puducherry has so far tested 9.9 lakh swab samples for Covid-19, with 8.7 lakh returning negative. The number of samples tested, however, doesn’t necessarily reflect the number of people tested as a single person may have been tested several times, said experts. Multiple factors must be considered while arriving at the percentage of the population tested, said Dr N G Rajesh, professor of pathology at Jawaharlal Institute of Postgraduate Medical Education and Research (Jipmer). “We cannot go by the number of samples tested alone. A person might have undergone several tests without any symptoms. People who need to travel have taken the test as it is mandatory. There may be still a major chunk of population in the interior pockets who have not been tested even once.”

Though a children's hospital, the Institute of Child Health, Egmore, has opened up an exclusive ward for adults in need of Covid care. “Though we are a children’s hospital, we started the ward for adults on Saturday because that is the need of the hour,” says Dr S Srinivasan, state nodal officer for child health. “We do not have ventilators here, but we have oxygen. We can manage those with an oxygen saturation of more than 85,” he says. At the moment, there are 150 beds for adults with Covid-19 and 50 for children. “The reason we could do this that is the number of children affected is comparatively less. And most are asymptomatic. We have oxygen and wanted to open out the facility to adults,” says Dr Rema Chandramohan of ICH.

The Pattali Makkal Katchi's (PMK) Youth Wing leader and Rajya Sabha Member Anbumani Ramadoss on Wednesday said the response for Tamil Nadu's global tender for Covid-19 vaccine seems to be nil. He also said the M.K. Stalin government should take over HLL Biotech Ltd's Integrated Vaccine Complex located near here and start manufacturing vaccines there. In a statement issued here former Union Health Minister Ramadoss said it has been 10 days since Tamil Nadu had issued a global tender to sourcing Covid-19 vaccine. "It seems no company has come forward offering its vaccine," Ramadoss said.

Hundreds of Covid-19 patients in home quarantine in the southern suburbs, who depend on NGOs for food, went to bed on an empty stomach on Tuesday night because volunteers were not allowed to commute. One of them, a 75-year-old patient from Pozhichalur near Pallavaram, who fainted without food, was admitted to a nearby private hospital during the wee hours of Wednesday. S M Govindarajan from Lions Club of Thiruneermalai, which was providing food to 50 patients in home quarantine, said, “I survived Covid and know the role of nutrient food in the recovery process. I was not able to have dinner knowing that patients, who were counting on me for food, were starving from the morning.”

Even as complaints of vaccine shortage in some places continued, the pace of Covid vaccination appeared to pick up pace across the state over the last two days. From 28,000-odd beneficiaries, the vaccination coverage tripled to 92,614 on Sunday which again grew at the same pace to cover 2.24 lakh people on Monday. The thrust of vaccination was clearly on those in the age group of 18 to 44 years going by the data of the health and family welfare department. Of the 2.24 lakh vaccinated on Monday, 1.89 lakh were in the bracket of 18 to 44 years.

The Tamil Nadu government has shifted its focus on Covid-19 containment in the Coimbatore region a spike was witnessed while the northern areas of the state like Chennai showed a declining trend. Health Secretary J. Radhakrishnan told IANS that focus has shifted towards the western region including Coimbatore, Tirupur and Erode. However, the senior bureaucrat said: "The drop in numbers in the northern region, including Chennai, is preliminary and we cannot guarantee that it's a permanent reduction. "We have in fact shifted our focus towards western Tamil Nadu including Coimbatore, Tiruppur and Erode as the cases are spiralling in these areas."

Clear indicators are now available showing the spread of Covid-19 is slowing down in the city after two weeks of an intense lockdown. Sample this; there is a 5% decrease in the number of streets where Covid-19 cases have been recorded a week ago. As on May17, 6,627 streets in the city had at least one active case. This came down to 6,194 on May 24, analysis of data from Greater Chennai Corporation (GCC) shows. Similarly, the number of containment zones in the city, which is a count of all streets with more than 10 active cases, has dropped from 890 to 765 in the same period. This is a decrease of 14%.

Booking a 108 ambulance in a village is no easy task while hiring a private ambulance will cost you a bomb. Realising these twin challenges at a time when the coronavirus is playing havoc with people’s lives, K Mahendran, a Congress general secretary, has converted his car into an ambulance to ferry patients to hospital. “My plan was to buy an ambulance so that people could use it in an emergency. But I chose to convert my car for the time being as an ambulance van would cost a minimum of 5 lakh,” says Mahendran. A native of Pattukottai in Thanjavur district, the 44-yearold has made changes to his SUV to accommodate an oxygen cylinder.

Take immediate steps to release women convicts in prison, especially those with children below six years of age, on parole in view of the pandemic, Madras high court has told Tamil Nadu government. The first bench of Chief Justice Sanjib Banerjee and Justice Senthilkumar Ramamoorthy also directed the state to take steps and release other prisoners also to decongest the prisons and check the spread of covid-19 in jails. The court passed the interim orders on Tuesday, on a suo motu PIL proceedings to award suitable compensation by identifying the next of kin of the prisoners who have admittedly died an unnatural death as revealed by the National Crime Research Bureau (NCRB) during the period between 2012 and 2015 and even thereafter unless adequate compensation has already been awarded.

Health secretary J Radhakrishnan has said that 181 cases of mucormycosis or black fungus have been reported in the state till Monday and efforts were on to uproot the disease. “Many of them are in CMC, Vellore,” he told reporters here on Tuesday. He said all medical college hospitals across the state have been asked to keep a separate ward with 15 to 30 beds to treat those affected by the fungal infection. They will be treated by experts from the ophthalmology and ENT departments. The situation in Tamil Nadu is not as grave as in Rajasthan or Gujarat, he said adding that the state has pressured the Centre for medicine to treat the infection. Earlier, health minister Ma Subramanian said a multidisciplinary expert medical team comprising ten members has been formed to identify the reason behind Covid-19 patients getting infected by mucormycosis.

Tamil Nadu added 468 deaths —highest so far — that pushed the death toll to 21,340 on Tuesday. The 34,285 new cases took the case tally to 19.1 lakh. After 28,745 people were discharged, there were 3.06 lakh patients in the active cases registry. On an average, the state tests at least 1.6 lakh people every day and continues to report the highest number of fresh cases in the country. While the active cases continue to increase every day, the daily cases in the state reports have dropped from around 36,000 on May 21.

The R-naught (R0), or the basic reproduction number for Covid-19 —a key epidemiological indicator —has dropped below 1 in Chennai to 0.9, showing the city’s cases are now shrinking as quickly as the public health authorities would like. Across the state, barring a few districts in the western and southern regions, it is inching close to 1 – the latest estimate standing around 1.08. Epidemiologists say R0 indicates how many new cases one infected person generates. “If the R0 is two, we would expect each new case of a disease to produce two other infections. With any R value greater than 1 the infection will increase, spreading through the population,” said National Institute of Epidemiology deputy director Dr Prabhdeep Kaur. If the effective R is reduced below one, cases will come down.

The Puducherry government has issued a memo to three nursing officers, who urged lieutenant governor (additional charge) Tamilisai Soundararajan and secretary (health) T Arun to provide good quality PPE kits to healthcare workers.

Private dairies like Thirumala, Jersey, Heritage and Dodla along with Milk Agents Association on Tuesday requested the Tamil Nadu government to grant permission to two-wheelers so that they can supply milk and milk products to citizens during lockdown.

Due to poor patronage as a result of the lockdown, the Southern Railway (SR) has announced extension of the temporary cancellation of train services till mid-June. The trains, connecting the southern districts, were earlier cancelled till May 31 and June 1.

Software firm Zoho Corp on Tuesday said it has extended its tech platform to government bodies, hospitals and NGOs in India providing Covid-19 relief to manage their operations more efficiently.