CHENNAI: An increasing number of city residents with multiple Covid-19 symptoms are opting against getting tested for the virus. While this approach might be keeping the medical infrastructure from getting burdened, officials said such patients are failing to follow home isolation norms and, in the process, are spreading the infection.
Abilash (name changed), a 36-year-old from Thoraipakkam, who was suffering from fever, body pain and headache in the last week, opted against testing because he thinks everyone has fever these days.
“It subsided in about four days. I’ve started going back to work. A lot of people I know have fever which goes off in a few days. Since we are all double-vaccinated, I didn’t want to get tested,” he said.
His 57-year-old mother also had fever for three days, accompanied by a runny nose. She also opted against testing.
For some residents who chose to get tested, the symptoms seem to alleviate in three days before their test results came back positive.
Sindoori, an IT professional, said: “By the time the test results of my roommate came back positive after three days, her fever and tiredness had gone. So when I got symptoms, I waited for four days and took paracetamol and felt better.”
While the symptoms may pass without interventions for some, corporation officials on the field said people do not take home isolation seriously when they do not take tests.
“Now, there are a lot of cases of fever in the city and people consult doctors or buy medicines and wait for it to pass. However, they do not isolate themselves properly and also tend to go out, infecting others,” said the official.
This reluctance in getting tested may also throw the data, including projections based on daily rise in cases and doubling rate, off track and make it difficult to get a clear picture on the extent of infection.
According to data analysts, this means that the focus should be shifted to other metrics.
“We need to focus more on test positivity rather than daily cases, as it can more or less tell us the trend in each region. The ICU and oxygen bed occupancy should be another metric to focus on,” said Vijayanand, a data analyst.