CHENNAI: After seeing a gradual dip in active cases over the past two months, Chennai has been witnessing a rise in the past four days. The city, which recorded less than 1,000 cases for a few days in the second week of August, has once again started reporting around 1,200 cases every day.
This has taken up the number of active cases from 10,868 on August 12 to 12,256 on August 19. The number of active cases, which stood at a whopping 24,890 on July 5 had gradually come down owing to containment measures.
While Chennai was seemingly on the road to recovery, the daily positivity rate is now close to 11 per cent again, even as the city is slowly opening up to economic activities. Chennai reported 1,186 cases and 16 deaths on Wednesday, while the State reported 5,795 cases and 116 deaths. The tally rose to 3,55,449 and toll to 6,123.
Even as the city is slowly unlocking its economic activities, health experts are of the opinion that its time the Corporation improvised upon its containment strategies. Dr Prabhdeep Kaur, Deputy Director, National Institute of Epidemiology, said testing could be ramped up in zones where there is a rise in cases.
‘Workplace intervention to be implemented’
“Covid spread began in north Chennai and moved to other places. Testing must now be ramped up in the west and south zones of the Corporation,’’ Kaur said, adding that there must be intensified surveillance in places where lesser number of cases were initially reported. According to the Corporation’s data, Ambattur, Kodambakkam and Adyar are showing growth in active cases. These zones, along with Valsaravakkam, have over 1,000 active cases.
Kaur said, “Improving work-place surveillance will be taking the containment measures way forward. Workplaces can appoint designated officers to record symptoms and temperature and report it.” Health Secretary J Radhakrishnan said the government would implement workplace intervention as part of its containment strategy through surveillance and screening.
“We had a meeting with all officials today and discussed about continuously focussing on screening at places of public gathering, markets, industries and other workplaces,’’ he told Express. Special focus is being given to Ambattur and Kodambakkam zones, and also the districts bordering the city. “We can’t comment on the increase in cases based on day-to-day numbers as it may keep varying.
Overall, the cases are still coming below 1,200, which reflects the success of containment strategies,’’ he said. While a positivity rate of five per cent or below is said to be an indicator for a spread to be contained, some experts believe that in reality, it can’t be taken as a yardstick. “It is very hard to bring down positivity percentage below five when the spread is intense, that too in a densely populated country.
Mortality rate is a good yardstick to measure containment strategies and Tamil Nadu has a very low mortality rate,’’ said Virologist Jacob John. Chennai has already had a lot of infections and it is now slowly becoming a less dreaded disease, he added.