Tamil Nadu Covid news live: Temples will open if cases are reined in, deaths nil, says minister

Tamil Nadu chief minister MK Stalin on Saturday launched a scheme to provide monetary assistance of Rs 4,000 each to 13,553 Sri Lankan Tamil refugee families living outside refugee camps to alleviate their difficulties in view of Covid-19. (PTI)

It’s said that music heals, and now doctors in Chennai’s Kauvery Hospital say that music really helps improve the mental health of recovering Covid-19 patients.

Public worship will be allowed in Tamil Nadu temples as soon as Covid-19 is brought under control and the state reports no Covid death, said Hindu religious and charitable endowments (HR&CE) minister P K Sekar Babu on Friday. The minister was replying to a question of reporters after he inspected the Sri Meenakshi Sundareswarar Temple in Madurai along with minister for commercial taxes P Moorthy and minister for finance P T R Palanivel Thiagarajan.

Members of the Students Federation of India (SFI) staged a Covid awareness street play in Goripalayam in Madurai city, on Friday. The methods of prevention, including frequent washing of hands, maintaining physical distance and wearing of masks were highlighted by the actors, who also stressed the importance of vaccines to overcome the crisis. Madurai district secretary of SFI, Vel Deva said that they plan to stage the drama in places where there is a high floating population twice a day, to pass the message to the people.

Applications for the state government’s sponsorship scheme has seen a nearly five-fold increase since the pandemic, which has robbed several families of income, set in last year. Around 5,000 families in Tamil Nadu have sought government assistance in 2020-21 to help educate and take care of their children’s development. The year before (2019-20), nearly 1,500 applied and 1,229 children benefited. READ FULL STORY

CPM MLA from Gandharvakottai M Chinnadurai donated his one-month salary towards the chief minister relief fund for Covid-19 preventive measures. He handed over a cheque of Rs 1.05 lakh to Pudukottai district collector Kavitha Ramu on Friday. The MLA expressed satisfaction over handing over his first month’s salary towards relief. Representing one of the backward constituency like Gandharvakottai, Chinnadurai said that he is working towards meeting the basic requirement of people in his constituency.

The decision to shift the vaccination camps from zonal offices of the Trichy Corporation to college and school campuses proved beneficial as the drive was held without any hiccups. Health authorities utilised the public address systems and digital display boards to inform about the available doses, which helped prevent unwanted crowding on Friday, even as 5,000 people were vaccinated in the city. The camps were held in Jamal Mohamed College (Ponmalai zone), Bishop Heber school (K Abishekapuram zone), Srimad Andavan College (Srirangam zone) and Syed Murtuza school (Ariyamangalam zone). Authorities separated the people separately under 18-44 and 45+ categories. “We used the digital board in Jamal Mohamed College to limit people entering the campus. As the status of doses in stock was displayed, people did not wait in vain,” Dr A Mohaemed Hakkim, nodal officer, vaccination drive said.

Even though Covid-19 cases continue to drop gradually in the state, Coimbatore remains the only district with more than 1,000 Covid-19 fresh cases. The tally increased to 2,10,573 in the district with 1,089 people testing positive for the virus on Friday. The number of active Covid-19 cases (11,644) in the district is more than three times that in Chennai – 3,360. As many as 2,237 people were discharged from hospitals and Covid care centres on the day, taking the total number of people recovered to 1,97,075. The state media bulletin has included 30 Covid deaths on the day. With this, the district’s Covid toll has increased to 1,854. A senior official from the health department said at present, the positivity rate stands close to 10% in the district. “Even though the number of active cases has come down significantly, all the Covid care centres are kept intact. We are planning to retain all the beds in the centres,” he added. In another positive development, the ICU bed occupancy rate has come down in the district considerably. The district has 305 of the 862 ICU beds, 2,278 of the 4,658 oxygen beds and 2,074 of the 2,931 ordinary beds vacant in hospitals. In Covid care centres, 3,506 of the 5,293 beds are vacant. The district administration had set up 12 interim Covid care centres in rural areas with 292 beds. Of them, 126 beds are occupied presently.

The recovery rate of Covid patients in the Union territory has begun improving in the last few days and is inching closer to 95%. Of 1.14 lakh cases reported so far, 1.08 lakh patients have recovered, registering a recovery rate of 94.9% on Friday. However, the fatality rate of infection in the territory stands at 1.5%, which is higher than the national average of 1.3%. Four patients, including two women, died of the infection taking the net death toll to 1,714 on Friday. Three of them including a 45-year-old woman did not have any comorbidities. Puducherry headquarters has the maximum fatalities (1,371), followed by Karaikal (210), Yanam (101) and Mahe (32).

As fresh Covid-19 cases in Chennai fell to below 500 and active cases to below 5,000 on Friday, the civic Cody plans to maintain the daily test numbers but reduce swab collection at urban primary health care centres (UPHCs). This is because UPHCs have started attending to pregnancies and other non-Covid cases. The civic body has also asked zonal offices to shut non-functional Covid care centres. READ MORE HERE

Tamil Nadu will continue to add beds, particularly in neonatal and paediatric units, in hospitals and Covid care centres across the state as a part of its preparation for the third wave, health minister Ma Subramanian has said. "No one wants a third wave, but experts have not been able to rule out the possibility. We continue to ramp up infrastructure in hospitals, stock up on essential and lifesaving drugs and train health workers," he told reporters on Friday. READ FULL STORY

South western railway will continue to run the following 10 trains to Tamil Nadu which were supposed to be operated only till the first week of July. The trains are: No. 02608 KSR Bengaluru–MGR Chennai Central, No. 02607 MGR Chennai Central-KSR Bengaluru, No. 02658 - KSR Bengaluru- MGR Chennai Central, No.02657 MGR Chennai Central-KSR Bengaluru, No. 06232 Mysore-Mayiladuthurai, No. 06231 Mayiladuthurai - Mysore, No. 06236 Mysore -Tirunelveli, No. 06235 Tirunelveli-Mysore, No. 06526 KSR Bengaluru -Kanyakumari, No. 06525 Kanyakumari – KSR Bengaluru.

The Tamil Nadu government has informed Madras high court that it is willing to extend covid-19 cash relief to transgender persons without insisting on ration cards as identity proof. “The state has decided to extend the benefit to all transgenders irrespective of whether they possess the registration cards,” advocate-general R Shunmugasundaram told the court on Friday. Recording the submission, the first bench of Chief Justice Sanjib Banerjee and Justice R Subbiah said, “since the state has agreed to extend the benefit to all transgenders irrespective of whether they are registered or not, an appropriate modality should be worked by which the transgenders receive the benefit and yet, the system is not misused.”