In Tamil Nadu, 743 people were confirmed COVID-19 positive on 20.05, taking the total to 13,191. The caseload in Chennai has crossed the eight thousand mark with 557 new patients. On the other hand, a record 987 patients were discharged today leaving the active caseload at 7,219. Three patients died of the disease taking the fatalities to 87. The new positive cases include 83 returnees from Maharashtra.

It was reported that Chennai carries more than half of the caseload in the state, additional measures are being taken there.

The city civic body in Chennai has decided to deploy 2,500 more field workers in about 2,000 hutment areas as COVID-19 caseloads in the pockets are significantly more.

They will be monitoring the health conditions of the people and create awareness about safety protocols. Meanwhile, the Tamil Nadu Government has told the Madras High Court, it has so far sent back about one lakh and eight hundred guest labourers to their home states so far and the process is continuing.

Hearing a petition on early repatriation of those who want to return, it said the Shramik Special train fare is being borne by itself.

The court has directed the State and the Centre to submit a detailed reply by next Tuesday.

It may be noted that over 2.43 lakh labourers have registered themselves to go back.

On other news update, ICMR has confirmed that India has reached a landmark in its fight against COVID-19 by performing one lakh tests per day. Starting from less than 100 tests per day, a multiple fold increase in just two months was made possible by dedicated teams of various stakeholders including research institutions, medical colleges, testing laboratories, Ministries, airlines and postal services. It is a remarkable journey of India becoming self-reliant in its testing capabilities.

The Indian Council of Medical Research, has said that a total of one lakh three thousand 532 samples of corona virus were tested in the last 24 hours. The figure of total number of tests has reached 26 lakh 15 thousand 920 in the country.

ICMR further added that in January 2020, India had only one testing laboratory for COVID-19 at the Indian Council of Medical Research’s National Institute of Virology, Pune. Today there are 569 laboratories including government and private laboratory chains across India for testing samples of coronavirus. India faced with an unprecedented challenge both in terms of technicalities and scale in the initial period of corona virus outbreak in the country. To overcome this challenge, the government associated with domestic industry to achieve self sufficiency in testing capabilities.

ICMR has approved 14 validation centers to review the request for approving any new laboratories for Covid testing and to expedite RT-PCR kits produced by the industry. A total 71 RT-PCR kits of the various companies have been evaluated so far.

In order to ensure that the supplies reached every laboratory in a timely manner amid the nationwide lockdown, the services of the Ministry of Civil Aviation under ‘Mission Lifeline Udan’ were availed. In the last 2 months, 40 tonnes of testing material has been transported in more than 150 flight operations.