An entire village in Tamil Nadu has been declared a containment zone after 26 people in the village tested positive for Covid-19. There are as many as 79 houses and 383 families at Marakottai village in Karuvalli Gram Panchayat near Omalur.
The district administration said a majority of the residents in the village travel to other states like Karnataka for work.
Sadhu Bakatha Singh, the senior doctor at the Kadayampatti primary health care, said a couple of days ago, four people who had returned to the village from Bengaluru had complained of fever and other COVID-19 symptoms on Wednesday. They were tested at the primary health care centre and found to be positive. The doctors at the centre soon conducted swab tests for their contacts who had symptoms like difficulty in breathing, fever, and found 12 people positive on Thursday.
Soon, the doctors in the Kadayampatti taluk set up a fever camp and carried out tests for the rest of the residents. The streets connecting the village were cordoned off, and with the help of revenue and police personnel, the health department were able to restrict the movement in the village. On Friday, 10 more people tested positive taking the overall tally to 26. The Village Administrative officer Sowri Rajan said the results of the rest of the samples are expected today. The entire village has been disinfected and the doctors are regularly monitoring the residents.
Meanwhile, Tamil Nadu on Thursday reported 12,652 cases and 59 deaths. As many as 7,526 patients were discharged and there were 89,428 active cases. The overall tally reached 10.37 lakh and the toll reached 13,317. Chennai reported the highest number of COVID-19 cases (3,789) followed by Chengalpattu with 906 cases, Coimbatore with 689 cases and Tiruvallur with 510 cases. Including Salem, as many as seven districts reported more than 300 cases.
