CHENNAI: The number of days taken for cumulative Covid-19 cases to double in Tamil Nadu has plummeted sharply from the beginning of 2022.
A similar trend is seen in Chennai as well, which has been accounting for over 50 per cent of new cases. An increase in doubling time shows that the spread of the virus is under control.
“A drop in doubling time means the transmission is high,” deputy director of National Institute of Epidemiology Dr Prabhdeep Kaur said.
Considering the State’s cumulative number of Covid cases of around 27 lakh, the doubling time as on December 23 was 3,119 days.
This means, it would have taken TN over eight years for the number of Covid cases to double.
However, on January 2, this had dropped to 1,880 days and almost halved to 924 on January 5.
In Chennai, which has so far reported around 5.6 lakh cases, the fall in doubling rate has been precipitous.
On December 23, doubling rate for the city was 3,002 days. This declined to 883 days on January 2 then to a mere 378 days on January 5.
This means that while it might take TN about 2.5 years to double the number of cases, it would take Chennai just over one year to accomplish the same.
New cases in Chennai have doubled in less than two days, from 876 on January 3 to 2,481 cases on January 5.
When the first wave started to subside, in July 2020, Chennai corporation officials said the doubling time showed an increasing trend, indicating government interventions, including lockdown, testing and surveillance, had worked.
According to Dr Kaur, the effectiveness of these interventions would only be known after at least for one incubation period.
“People should follow restrictions and ensure mask compliance,” she added.