AIADMK Coimbatore South constituency MLA Amman Arjunan tested positive for the novel coronavirus on Sunday, becoming the fifth ruling party legislator to contract the virus. The 58-year-old has been admitted to the Government ESI Hospital in Coimbatore and is currently undergoing treatment, a health department official said. The ruling party legislator took the test for COVID-19 a couple of days ago and his result came in on Sunday.
Notably, his 32-year-old daughter, 39-year-old son-in-law and 11-year-old granddaughter are already undergoing treatment at the ESI hospital after having contracted the infection first. They had returned from Madurai just a couple of days ago following which nine persons from his household were tested for COVID-19.
So far, Sriperumbudur MLA K Palani, Higher Education Minister KP Anbalagan, Paramakudi MLA N Sathan Prabhakar, and Ulundurpet MLA R Kumaraguru have tested positive for COVID-19 disease from the ruling party in the state. Four DMK MLAs, including the deceased J Anbazhagan, had also tested positive for COVID-19 in Tamil Nadu.
During one of his press meets in June, Minister of Health and Family Welfare C Vijayabaskar told the media that the Chief Minister too was tested for COVID-19 and his report came back negative.
Coimbatore presently has 435 active COVID-19 cases, 67 new cases were added just on Saturday. As of July 4, 275 persons have been discharged in the district that managed to flatten its curve of COVID-19 transmission early on. In April, Coimbatore was among the top three hotspots in Tamil Nadu, coming just after Chennai. By May, the district moved out from being a hotspot and was marked as an Orange district i.e., no new cases were reported in a period of 14-days. As of July 4, 712 persons have contracted the virus in the district.
(With inputs from PTI)