Amid surging COVID-19 cases in Tamil Nadu, the Central team from Delhi has visited Chennai and reviewed and took stock of the situation of the virus spread and the containment strategies in the city to curb the spread. 

The Central team headed by Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare's Additional Secretary Arti Ahuja has arrived in Chennai on Thursday and reviewed the city's measures to contain the spread. The Central team has visited Rajiv Gandhi Government General Hospital and also visited COVID-19 care centers in the city including the center in Pulianthope and the newly developed center in Guindy. 

After reviewing the medical facilities, they took stock of the containment measures carried out by the government in various areas of the city along with Tamil Nadu Health Minister Vijayabaskar and Health Secretary J Radhakrishnan. Following the observance of the situation in Chennai, the Central team had sat down with Tamil Nadu Chief Secretary Shanmugam to review the situation in 15 districts.

The Central team has, on Thursday, held a virtual meeting with the district collectors of the districts that are emerging as COVID-19 hotspots including Madurai, Kancheepuram, Vellore, Salem, Theni, Thiruvallur, and Kallakurichi. They noted down the on-ground situation in these districts. Following their virtual meet and observance of the situation, the Central team met with Chief Minister Edappadi Palaniswami on Friday- July 10 at the Chief Secretariat. 

Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami today held a meeting with the Central Committee at the Chief Secretariat regarding the preventive measures taken against #COVID19 in Tamil Nadu and the treatment provided to the infected persons: Tamil Nadu CMO pic.twitter.com/gPN02WPX3h

— ANI (@ANI) July 10, 2020

The meeting had lasted for over an hour and by taking to Twitter, the Chief Minister said he carried out the discussion with the Central team on the containment and preventive measures rolled out in curbing the spread and treatment provided to the virus-hit patients in Tamil Nadu. 

According to the reports, this has been the first visit of any Central team to Tamil Nadu connected to the COVID-19 pandemic, and the team visited Chennai as the city has been one among the top three hotspots for the virus spread in the country. The team has strongly suggested the Tamil Nadu government intensify the containment measures across the state to mitigate the spread.

Along with aggressive containment plans, the Central team has instructed the government to carry out intense contact tracing methods to detect the carriers at the early stage and to focus on streamlining and auditing the deaths that occurred due to COVID-19. The reports stated that the Central team has been scheduled to carry out its audit and review the situation until Saturday.

Their visit has come at the high time when most of the southern districts in Tamil Nadu have been reporting a surge in COVID-19 cases. As of Thursday, Tamil Nadu has reported 1,26,581 cases so far of which 46,652 are active, 78,161 have been recovered, and 1,765 had succumbed to the virus.