Matters worsened for Tamil Nadu as the government confirmed 57 new coronavirus cases on Tuesday.

With this the number of Covid-19 cases in Tamil Nadu has jumped to 124, state health secretary Beela Rajesh confirmed.

On Tuesday, 7 new coronavirus cases were announced by Tamil Nadu Health Minister C Vijayabaskar on his Twitter handle in the morning. Later, 50 additional cases were announced by Health Secretary Beela Rajesh in a press conference in the evening.

The staggering spike in the number of cases in Tamil Nadu is linked to the Tablighi Jamaat event in Delhi's Nizamuddin is what the government is saying. Out of the 57 new cases, 50 of the affected patients are directly linked to the Nizamuddin event with a travel history to Delhi.

According to the Tamil Nadu Health Secretary,1,500 people from Tamil Nadu attended the Tablighi Jamaat meeting in Delhi. Of this, 1,130 returned to the state and the rest stayed back in Delhi.

"Out of the 1,130 people who came back, we have identified 515 people across several districts. Out of these 515 people, 45 people from the 50 fresh cases and five people from the morning's list tested positive for coronavirus", said Beela Rajesh.

All of them have been admitted to medical college hospitals in Kanyakumari, Tirunelveli, Chennai and Namakkal and are stable, she said.

The Health Secretary also said that tracing of the Tablighi Jamaat attendees is going on, however, many of them have given mobile numbers that are either switched off or unavailable. "We are requesting the people who attended the meeting in Delhi to please come forward and declare yourself so that we can help you and your family", the health secretary added.

Apart from these, 2 Thai nationals who had also attended the Nizamuddin meeting tested positive earlier and are said to have primary, secondary and tertiary contacts across Erode, Perundurai and Madurai resulting in at least 80 cases in the state being linked to the Tablighi Jamaat meeting in Delhi.

SOURCE : INDIATODAY