Chennai, Jun 30 (IANS): With the active cases in Tamil Nadu breaching the 10,000-mark, the state Public Health department has directed all the colleges and schools to strictly adhere to Covid protocols.

As many as 1,285 fresh cases were registered on Wednesday prompting the health department to send an advisory to all the educational institutions.

Director of State Public health department Dr. T. S. Selvavinayagam told media that the educational institutions have to be strictly monitored and the department has sent circulars to all the educational institutions to ensure that students are strictly adhering to Covid protocols.

He said that across the globe people have to wear masks, keep safe distancing, and sanitise regularly to keep the disease at bay. This is in addition to the two doses of Covid vaccines to prevent getting infected.

Tamil Nadu health minister Ma Subramanian while speaking to IANS explained: "The only method now is to adhere to Covid-19 protocol and we have been telling this regularly to the people of the state to wear masks, keep safe distancing and sanitise regularly. Everyone should also take the vaccines as the state health department has arranged the facility to take vaccines at the PHCs in all the nook and corners of the state."

On Wednesday, the number of active cases in the state crossed the 10,000-mark for the first time since February 23, when the third wave was declining. The weekly average in the state on June 1 was 80 while on June 29 the number of fresh cases per day touched 1285.

The state has also increased the number of RT-PCR tests and is presently doing 25,000 cases a day. In the first week of June, the number of RT-PCR tests was 14,000.

While most people are not worried about the possibility of a fourth wave as they feel that due to the two doses of vaccination, even if they infected by the disease, the attack would be mild. However, health department is worried that if the number of cases increases, the hospitalisation will also increase as in some co-morbid cases, hospitalization becomes necessary.

The Directorate of Public Health of Tamil Nadu has identified three categories of people who are not in the state records. Those who take symptomatic treatment after consulting doctors without any tests, those who test at home using the kits available and do not report, and super-spreaders who don't test and who don't take treatment and move around in the streets without masks even after having symptoms of the disease.

The state health department is contemplating a strict police monitoring of people which would lead to more adhering to Covid protocols. A senior official in the state health department told IANS that a high-level meeting of the state health department in which the state health minister will also participate is being called on Thursday at the secretariat to decide on the further course of action.