Covid-19 case tally in IIT-Madras has gone up to 183 with 79 more people testing positive for the viral infection on Tuesday.
As many as 98 them are admitted to National Institute of Ageing on the Kings Institute campus. Those tested positive on Tuesday will undergo basic screening including blood tests, X ray and CT scans.
“All patients have mild forms of infection,” said health secretary J Radhakrishnan.
“Still, the results of 25 people are awaited. But, the positivity rate has come down from 25% to 15%,” he told reporters.
The infection rate in Tamil Nadu is low. “Cases in IIT are constrained within the geographical area. We are doing smart containment measures to ensure they don’t pass it on to the community. We have seen similar clusters at market places and jewellery shops earlier,” he said.
Greater Chennai Corporation Commissioner G Prakash said all IIT students had been screened. “We are doing a saturated screening to ensure everyone is tested. This test will be repeated after 10 days,” he said.
With 25 lakh people tested, at least one in every three persons in the city have undergone RT-PCR tests so far, he said. “We have tested three lakh per million people. Early tests and treatment has helped us bring down the death rate from 2.8pc to 1.7pc, he said.
The corporation is now making a line list of frontline workers for the vaccination against Covid-19. “The list will be ready by next Friday, so we can start vaccination as soon as the drug is available. It will take three months for the vaccine to reach the common public. Until then, the only tool available with people is a mask,” he said.