Tamil Nadu Chief Secretary K Shanmugam, while addressing the media on Saturday, said that the rapid test kits ordered by India have not arrived yet. Shanmugam said that the rapid test kit ordered by India have been diverted to the United States from China, where the kits are produced.

The chief secretary, while answering a question on the delay on the arrival of rapid testing kits, said that Tamil Nadu had independently placed orders for 1 lakh kits with China even before the Central government had advised the state to do so.

"In a meeting, we were told to speed up the process and after which we placed an additional order of 50,000 kits. Three to four days ago, the chief minister said that since we have a lot of frontline workers and because we will need to screen the quarantined region more, we will need more kits. We then ordered two lakh kits more. Orders for four lakh kits have been placed as of now," the chief secretary said.

"Since we had placed orders early, they (China) have promised to give us at least 50,000 kits in the first consignment and then deliver 50,000 more in the next consignment," he said.

Tamil Nadu has reported a total of 969 covid-19 positive cases to date. Out of these, 881 cases are from a single source, which is the Tablighi Jamaat event in Delhi, and their contacts.

The state government has earmarked 17 districts as red zones. With 182 Covid-19 patients, the highest number of cases has been reported in Chennai, the state capital.