After ITC Chola, Chennai’s Leela Palace turns Covid hotspot, 20 test positive

Twenty staff members at Chennai’s star hotel, the Leela Palace, have tested positive for COVID-19. This is Chennai’s second luxury hotel to have emerged as a COVID-19 hotspot after the ITC Grand Chola.

Following the outbreak, the Greater Chennai Corporation (GCC) officials said they have instructed the luxury hotels to postpone the scheduled events. A total of 125 hotel employees including 114 from the star-category hotels have tested positive.

According to civic authorities, as many as 4,392 employees of the hotels across the city were tested and the results of 491 of them are awaited.

On Saturday, Health Secretary J Radhakrishnan confirmed that 85 people including staff members of ITC Grand Chola luxury hotel in Chennai tested positive for Covid-19. Radhakrishnan added that one of the staff members had tested positive for the virus on December 15.

According to the screening report by GCC, 11 out of 2,769 employees of hotels not included in the star category have also tested positive for Covid-19.

This is another instance of a cluster in the city after the Koyembedu Wholesale Market and IIT Madras.

Meanwhile, Tamil Nadu reported 867 Covid-19 cases on Sunday including 236 from Chennai. As many as 8,20,712 persons have tested positive till date and 8,00,429 have been discharged from the hospital. With 10 deaths on Sunday, the toll reached 12,516. There are 8,127 active cases in the state.