At a high time when India is about to mark its third anniversary of imposing complete lockdown to curb the spread of COVID pandemic, the cases of the infection are surging in several areas of the country including Tamil Nadu. The state of Tamil Nadu has been witnessing a soaring trend of COVID cases for the past few days, which has caused a sense of worry among the people. 

On Tuesday, Tamil Nadu Health Minister Ma Subramanian admitted that the COVID cases are growing in the state and said what's happening around the development. He said that fresh cases of COVID-19 are increasing in Tamil Nadu and the Omicron sub-variants XBB and BA.2 remain the dominant variants in circulation but there is no need to panic. He also said that the cases of influenza are getting declined.

Subramanian further said that the Union Health Secretary had issued a circular to Tamil Nadu last week on the rise in COVID-19 cases. He cited that in Tamil Nadu, the daily cases dropped to two nearly two months ago and there were one or two deaths owing to the contagion in the last eight to nine months. The minister was addressing the reporters after holding a meeting on COVID-19 prevention and precautionary measures. 

By citing that the Omicron sub-variants XBB and BA.2 are in circulation, the minister stated, "However, there are no deaths or patients requiring treatment in the intensive care units." He also cited that there were no major clusters requiring micro-containment measures. He said that the state would conduct a study to measure population immunity due to past infections and vaccinations against the pandemic. 

"Previous surveys showed that nearly 90% of people carried immunity against the viral infection. That's possibly why we have fewer hospitalizations and deaths over the last six to eight months. We will repeat this study now", Subramanian highlighted and added that the sero-surveillance will be conducted in 38 districts by the directorate of public health as part of its disease surveillance activities along with continuous monitoring of new cases, variants, hospitalization, and mortality rates. 

According to the bulletin of the state health department, Tamil Nadu has reported 79 COVID cases on Tuesday - March 21, which took the tally of active cases to 441. On the other hand, the trend of growing cases across the country has drawn attention at the national level. On Wednesday- March 22, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had held a high-level meeting in Delhi and reviewed the public health preparedness to tackle the spread. 

India has recorded 1,134 fresh infections, with the active cases rising to 7,026 on Wednesday. Last week, Union Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan, in his letter to six states with rising COVID cases, said, "There are a few states which are reporting higher numbers of cases indicating possible localised spread of infection, and there is a need to follow a risk assessment based approach to prevent and contain the infection. It is essential that the state must maintain a strict watch and take pre-emptive action if required in any areas of concern to control emerging spread of infection."