10-month-old baby and 7 more test positive for COVID-19 in Tamil Nadu; state's tally rises to 50

It was a mixed Sunday for Tamil Nadu with eight new patients, including a 10-month-old baby, testing positive for Coronavirus and two patients getting discharged from a city hospital after “full recovery.”

This takes the tally in Tamil Nadu to 50 including four patients who have left hospitals after recovery and one person who passed away last week.

All eight, who tested positive for Covid-19 on Sunday, are direct or indirect contacts of the two Thai nationals who came to Tamil Nadu in the second week of March. They were traced through the tracking system of the Health Department.

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Out of the eight, four are from one family, including the 10-month-old baby who is understood to have contracted the virus from one of his family members. The mother of the child, his grandmother and another member of the family have also tested positive.

The remaining four, who had attended a religious conference in New Delhi where they are understood to have come in contact with the group of Thai nationals currently under treatment, are admitted to the IRT Medical College in Perundurai in Erode district.

Read: Coronavirus: State-wise total number of confirmed cases, deaths

The Thai nationals, who came to Tamil Nadu on March 11, have directly/indirectly infected 14 patients so far. The first person to have lost his life to Covid-19 in Tamil Nadu is also a contact of the Thai nationals.

Even as the fresh cases led to cause for worry, there was hope as well – two patients, who returned from the US, were discharged taking the number of those recovering from the illness in the state to 4.

“All eight new patients are contacts of the two Thai nationals and their group who have already tested positive and are at the government hospital in Perundurai. These new patients are their contacts and they were under quarantine and now that they have tested positive, treatment has started,” Health Secretary Dr Beela Rajesh said.

Dr Beela Rajesh said 43,538 people who returned from abroad are under home quarantine for 28 days, while 79 asymptomatic passengers from highly affected countries are being quarantined in quarantine facilities near airport and 295 are under hospital isolation.

“Till now 1,763 samples have tested, while samples of 1,674 passengers are processed of which 1,624 samples are negative, 50 samples are positive for COVID-19 infection and 89 samples are under process,” an update from the Health Department on Sunday evening said.

The fresh cases came on a day the government carried out a massive containment plan to prevent further outbreak of Covid-19. It demarcated an 8 km zone in the radius of the locality where positive patients lived before being shifted to hospitals.

Health workers went go door-to-door in the containment and buffer zones and checked for people with symptoms of cold and fever and provided them with masks.

Meanwhile, the government said three people, who died after being quarantined at the isolation ward of Kanyakumari Government Medical College Hospital on Saturday, have tested negative for Covid-19.