Another 34 students of the National Institute of Skill Training, Guindy were found to be COVID positive on Saturday, apart from the 18 who had tested positive for the virus so far, according to corporation officials. Nearly all the students have had no symptoms at all, which has resulted in several people further contracting the virus. The students have been shifted to the Athipet COVID care centre.
"There are no primary sources in this case. In the IIT cluster, a mess worker tested positive and so several others contracted the infection since he came into contact with several batches of students in a day. Here, the mess worker tested negative and only two staff were found to be positive, the rest are all students,-" said a corporation official.-"Many of the students even refused to believe that they are Covid positive because they had absolutely no symptoms at all,-" the official added. This scenario, however, has made contact tracing really challenging for corporation staff.-"They are all young students and have joined the institute only in February and none of them as much as suspected having the virus. So, they have been going out a lot freely. We have also ruled out the possibility of any recent visitors carrying the virus,-" said an official who did not want to be named.
Every two students also share a toilet in their rooms that may have resulted in further spreading apart from the skill training courses requiring person-to-person contact, according to sources. A majority of the students who were affected were from the plumbing department. Since none of the students exhibited any apparent symptoms of the virus, the emergence of the cluster came to light only because a 36-year-old staff, one of the two staff who tested positive, showed symptoms.-"We tested the staff and found he was positive. So, we tested the whole department just to be sure and found that three students were positive and so we moved onto the next and covered all departments,-" said a corporation official. The strength of the institute is 550.-"This means that around 9% of the students have been infected. Since there are no primary sources, the main reason for the cluster here is due to no proper usage of masks within students and not maintaining social distancing,-" the of
