Tamil Nadu CM advises people to maintain social distancing amid COVID-19 surge

Chennai: In light of the resurgence in the COVID-19 cases by the BF.7 sub-lineage of the Omicron variant BA 5 in China, Japan, US, and other countries and the growing public anxiety, the Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M K Stalin led a meeting at the Chennai Secretariat on 22nd December to talk about the COVID-19 situation in the state and the proper precautionary measures to be taken. 

Health minister Ma Subramanian, Chief secretary V Irai Anbu, DGP C Sylendra Babu, home secretary K Phanindra Reddy, health secretary Dr P Senthil Kumar, National Health Mission- Tamil Nadu director Shilpa Prabhakar, Tamil Nadu Medical Services Corporation MD Deepak Jacob, director of public health Dr T S Selvavinayagam and various other top officials attended the meeting. 

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Requesting the people to not panic, CM said that the government is completely prepared to protect them. The CM have asked people to maintain social distancing in closed and crowded areas, and visit the nearest hospital over any Covid like symptoms.

Symptomatic people have been asked to get treated and tested as per the doctor's directions. The CM said that the government was prepared with beds, drugs, testing, and oxygen facilities being made available adequately in all hospitals, which could be ramped up if required.

Officials have been directed to take various suitable measures. He directed the officials to screen all passengers arriving to the State at the international airport here for Covid symptoms and treat them as per the standard operation procedure (SOP). They would be tested for any kind of fever, cough or breathing difficulty. 

The state Public health department had already sent a request letter to the Union Health Ministry to conduct checking of passengers arriving from China and Hong Kong for COVID-19. 

The state government has also directed the officials to conduct whole genome sequencing of COVID-19 samples to detect new variants. Further, officials have been directed to monitor influenza- like illness and SARI cases. Omicron BF-7 which is the new causative variant for Covid-19 surge in China and other countries is a subvariant of Omicron BA- 5 which was detected in Tamil Nadu during genome sequencing conducted in June, July and August. 

The Health secretary P Senthil Kumar talked about the COVID-19 situation and preparedness of the government machinery, reports The New Indian Express.