CHENNAI: Although Chennai’s average testing in the week following the ‘intense lockdown’ reduced by around 1,000 samples, the favourable positivity rate indicates that the city may be on the right track to recovery, say experts.
During the last week of ‘intense lockdown’ (from June 29 to July 5), the city tested an average of 10,060 samples per day. The average for the next week (June 6 to 12) however, fell to 9,072. Even so, the positivity rate average for the present week was just 14.1 per cent as against the 20.7 per cent of the preceding week.
The reduction in absolute Covid positive cases was around 38 per cent during the period. “When you consider the positivity rate and the absolute number of cases, both are reducing proportionally indicating that the testing is very focused,” former director of public health P Kolandaisamy said. The city registered a daily average of 2,058 positive cases between June 29 and July 5, while the number for the next week came down to 1,283.
Virologist T Jacob John opined that the number of cases in Chennai has peaked and is now coming down. “However, it is too early to celebrate or relax the intensity of containment measures,” he added. A senior official of Chennai corporation said that Chennai is far ahead as far as testing is concerned. “As labs are working overtime there is this issue of backlog clearance, and now we are associating with private labs as well,” he added.