The district administration’s decision to go beyond state government protocols may have helped contain the spread of COVID-19 virus in Tamil Nadu’s Coimbatore. The district’s record of not having new COVID-19 cases for 22 days was broken when a passenger in a Chennai-Coimbatore flight tested positive on 26 May.
A passenger flying aboard an Indigo flight from Chennai to Coimbatore tested positive for COVID-19 on the first day of the reopening of domestic flight operations on Monday, 25 May.
So, how did the Coimbatore government’s proactiveness help identify this case? As per the Tamil Nadu’s government Standard Operating Procedure (SOP), domestic travel did not mandate testing for all passengers.
According to a government order from the Revenue and Disaster Management Department, only those found symptomatic should be tested, while the asymptomatic ones could opt for home quarantine and institutionalised quarantine, depending on whether they have a residence in the city.
However, the Coimbatore district administration decided to conduct RT-PCR test (swab test) on every passenger arriving in Coimbatore airport.
The Positive Patient
When the 24-year-old male on the Chennai-Coimbatore Indigo flight 6E 381 arrived in Coimbatore, as per protocol, his swabs were collected. Along with other passengers, he was sent to an institutional quarantine centre at the city’s Hotel Vinayak. The next morning, his test came positive and he was shifted from the hotel to ESI Hospital.
When he arrived in Coimbatore, the 24-year-old was asymptomatic.
What about the other passengers? The district administration said all of the passengers who travelled with him are in quarantine. On Tuesday, 27 May, 361 passengers entered Coimbatore through flights – and samples were collected from all of them. About 231 passengers were residents of Coimbatore. They are under home quarantine. The rest remain in institutionalised quarantine.
Samples have been collected from all 361 passengers. So far, 137 tests have come negative and results of 224 are pending.
What About Other Airports in Tamil Nadu?
While Coimbatore is setting an example by testing all passengers, the other airports are not following the same protocol. Chennai, Madurai, and Trichy airports in domestic passengers are being asked to undergo thermal scanning, and only if any of them show symptoms, RT-PCR test (swab test) is conducted.
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