57 new COVID-19 cases in Tamil Nadu; 50 linked to Nizamuddin congregation

Chennai, Mar 31: Tamil Nadu on Tuesday saw as many as 57 new COVID-19 cases, the highest spike in a single day so far and 50 of them had travelled to Delhi to attend a religious congregation recently, the government said.

The aggregate number of virus cases stood at 124 in Tamil Nadu, with at least 77 of them having links to the congregation held in the national capital recently.

While the government confirmed seven new cases earlier in the day (of which five men had visited Delhi to take part in a religious congregation), Health Minister C Vijayabaskar confirmed 50 more new cases on his twitter handle.

Health Secretary Beela Rajesh told reporerts that of the 50 cases, 45 had travelled to Delhi to participate in the religious meet at the national capital's Nizamuddin West area.

Apart from the 45 people, four of the positive cases were from Chennai and another from kanyakumari, she said. All have been admitted to medical college hospitals in Kanyakumari, Tirunelveli, Chennai and Namakkal and they are stable, she said.

The Secretary said: "We could find 515 members and others who had attended the conference should please come forward to identify themselves so that we can place them in quarantine and provide appropriate treatment so that transmission of the infection to their families and the larger community could be stopped."

The contacts of the 515 members were being traced as well, she said. Chief Secretary K Shanmugam said efforts were afoot to 'isolate' all the participants of the conference from Tamil Nadu soon to stem the further spread of the contagion.

A government release said 1,000 plus people from Tamil Nadu had attended the Delhi Nizamuddin meet and said several of the returnees could not be traced by the respective district administrations and urged such persons to act responsibly and get in touch with the authorities. Tablighi Jamaat had held a conference in Delhi recently.