CHENNAI: In the Chennai corporation’s chart on zone wise growth rate of COVID-19 cases released daily, the Thiru Vi Ka Nagar zone has remained on top for the last four days.
The chart conveys the daily increase in COVID-19 cases using a seven day average.
While Thiru Vi Ka Nagar drew praise for being among the first zones to bring COVID-19 cases under control a month ago, its ascent to the top of the charts now comes as a concern to residents.
The positivity rate in the city overall is around 10-12% while the positivity rate in Thiru Vi Ka Nagar is now around 22%, said officials.
“The increase in new cases is mainly because we have increased the number of tests conducted in the zone. We have begun drawing more samples from market areas and other places in general,” said a senior official overseeing the COVID-19 containment work in the zone.
The zone recorded a 5% dip in the number of new cases on July 17 following which it crept up by 11.9% on Tuesday and 10.3% on Wednesday
Moreover, the zone’s death rate is also a cause of concern. It has a death rate of 2.23% when the death rate in the city is at 1.67%.
In the last five days, between July 17 and 21, it recorded close to 20 deaths.
“We are analysing why the numbers are what they are. I’ve been told that in the last ten days there has been a slight decrease in the number of deaths but we are yet to analyse the trends completely. We are looking into it,” said a senior official.
Thiru Vi Ka Nagar was one of the first zones to be affected by COVID-19 in the city alongside Royapuram. After an initial rise due to a prayer meeting, the zone went on to record the highest number of cases in the city for several weeks before intensive containment efforts by the corporation and monitoring by IAS officials brought the number of cases down by early June.
As on July 22, it has 1171 active cases.