Twenty residents of a hostel managed by actor Raghava Lawrence’s trust in Chennai’s Ashok Nagar tested positive for COVID-19 on Monday. Police confirmed that the hostel is managed by Larencce Charitable Trust, founded by the filmmaker in 2006.
According to an officer from the Greater Chennai Corporation (GCC), the hostel currently has 25 residents in it. “We tested 20 residents on Saturday after they showed fever symptoms in our daily local survey by health workers. Today the tests returned positive for COVID-19 and all of them have been shifted to a government hospital,” a senior GCC officer told TNM.
Following this, the GCC set up a containment zone around the hostel and restricted entry into the building. Further details about the hostel were not immediately available.
The trust was set up by actor-choreographer Raghava Lawrence as a part of his philanthropic efforts. Larencce Charitable Trust runs orphanages, homes for people with disabilities, supports funding for education and the environment, according to its official website.
As of Sunday evening, Chennai has reported 10,576 positive cases of COVID-19 of which the number of active cases is 5,655. Kodambakkam known as Zone 10, in which Ashok Nagar falls, has among the highest active cases in GCC limits. Zone 10 has 673 active cases of coronavirus reported, while 781 persons have recovered from the disease. In terms of number of active COVID-19 cases, only Royapuram (1158) and Tondiarpet (678) zones have a higher number of cases than Kodambakkam.
Tamil Nadu reported 16,277 positive cases of COVID-19 as of Sunday evening. It has also reported 111 deaths due to COVID-19 and 8,324 persons have been discharged from hospitals on recovery across the state. Tamil Nadu has also tested 4.09 lakh samples and has 68 testing labs across the state.
Due to the increasing number of cases being reported from Chennai every day, the government of Tamil Nadu has restricted the number of arrivals of domestic flights in Chennai airport to 25 per day. However, there is no restriction on the number of flights allowed to take off from the airport.
Multiple attempts by TNM to reach actor Raghava Lawrence and the Larencce Charitable Trust for comment did not succeed.