Stalin chairs meeting on COVID, urges people not to panic

Chennai, Dec 23 : As there has been spike in COVID cases in several countries, including China, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M.K.Stalin chaired a meeting to review the situation and appealed to the people not to panic as the government has put in place all necessary measures to protect them.
An official release here said Stalin chaired the meeting held at the State Secretariat and discussed ways to manage and control the COVID spread.
Health Secretary P.Senthilkumar made a detailed explanation on the State’s preparedness and said the government had stepped up monitoring and whole genome sequencing in line with the circular issued by the Union Health Ministry.
“What is causing the infection in Tamil Nadu is the XBB variant, which is a recombinant of BA-2. The BF-7, which is causing spike in cases in some Asian countries, is also a sub-variant of BA-5 and it was mainy responsbile for the infections reported in Tamil Nadu during June to August this year”, he said. Despite there has been significant dip in the daily cases as a mere five cases were reported in Tamil Nadu yesterday and the infection rate has come down, all the government hspitals are equipped with enough beds, medicine and oxygen and testing fcilities.
Medical officials have been advised to do whoe genome sequencing and monitor the infection including influenza like illness and severe acute respiratory infections, he said. During the meeting, the Chief Minister advised the health department officials to implement Standard Operating Procedures (SOP) for COVID management, especially in places were people gathered in large numbers and indoor facilities.
He also advised the officails to follow the SOP in the international airports and provide treatment to passengers with symptoms of COVID.
Meanwhile, Director of Public Health T.S. Selvavinayagam has written to the Union Health Ministry seeking guidelines to mandatorily test international passengers arriving from China and Hong Kong in view of the possible threat of a fresh wave of COVID-19 epidemic there.
In the letter, he recalled the previous guidelines that included the five-fold strategy of trace, test, treat, vaccinate and adhere to COVID appropriate behaviour. The Centre had revised its earlier guidelines and withdrawn the random testing of 2% international passengers as the number of new cases had come down drastically. However,
Dr. Selvavinayagam cited information in public domain that said China had reported 430 deaths and more than 1.48 lakh COVID cases in the past week, the surge owing to Omicron Variant BF.7.
This had been confirmed by the World Health Organisation as well, he added. Tamil Nadu has reported 49 cases and zero Covid-19 deaths in the last one week. Tamil Nadu had administered the first dose of preventive vaccine to 97% of the population and second dose to 92% of the people, He said so far, 12.74 crore doses had been administered in the State.