ARIYALUR: Ariyalur saw a major spike in cases on Thursday, with 188 people testing positive. A vast majority of them are those who returned from Koyambedu and their contacts. Many work as loadmen.
While Koyambedu cluster started emerging, many of them had already returned home by vegetable lorries. The health department then started identifying and testing them. However, instead of placing them in quarantine, they were sent home.
Sources say this is the reason for many female contacts and children testing positive. In the following days, hundreds of workers from Koyambedu thronged to their native villages in Ariyalur. They were stopped at the borders and taken to institutional quarantine facilities. The people who tested positive are natives of villages across the district. There are a total of six children who tested positive. It is said that around 2,000 people from Ariyalur villages are working in Koyambedu. With closure of the market, many are left jobless and started returning home. Sources said that if all of them are tested, the number may go up.
Tiruvannamalai woman dies
A 55-year-old woman who had been undergoing treatment for COVID-19 for about three weeks died at the isolation treatment ward of Tiruvannamalai GH on Wednesday. She tested positive on April 13 and was admitted to hospital. After two weeks of treatment, she tested positive in the first mandatory test and then tested negative in following tests. “The death was caused by cardiac arrest,” Thirumal Babu, Dean, Tiruvannamalai government medical college hospital said. Her last two test results were negative and she was about to be discharged in a day or two. She also had chronic diabetes, Babu said.