First it was the Tablighi Jamaat. Then it was Koyambedu. Now, it is returnees from other states, mainly from Maharashtra, apart from stranded international passengers in the Gulf. Tamil Nadu is getting trapped in the viral quicksand as cluster after cluster is pushing it deeper into the morass. The state government has been on its toes with its tracking, tracing and testing strategy. The spurt in cases (16,277 till now) has been attributed to the spike in testing in the state’s 68 labs (41 government and 27 private). Till now, the state has tested 4,09,615 of the nationwide total of 29,43,421 people, which works out to 13.9%. As on May 10, Andhra Pradesh led the country in the number of tests conducted per million population, with 3,253, followed by Tamil Nadu (2,975) and Rajasthan (2,033). On May 7, Tamil Nadu overtook Maharashtra’s total testing figures (2,02,436 against Maharashtra’s 2,02,105).
The Delhi Tablighi conference swell began on March 31, as 50 people tested positive in Tamil Nadu, with 45 of them coming from the event. The cluster led to a rise in the number of positive cases in the districts of Erode, Coimbatore, Madurai, Salem and Chennai. The state began tracking, tracing and testing their contacts, and that was when the number of cases doubled in a week (from 690 cases to 1,204 between April 7-14). Then the state announced an intense lockdown from April 26 to April 29. But panic buying on the day before the intense lockdown (April 25) set off a ticking time bomb, with the epicentre shifting to Koyambedu, one of the largest wholesale markets in the country. The first drop in this viral cauldron came from a vegetable vendor who lives in a densely populated zone in Chennai, Pullianthope. It is unclear whether she contracted the virus in the market or was the source of the spread there. Her 45 contacts tested positive, four of whom worked in the market.
Two days into the intense lockdown, a hairdresser who was illegally running his shop, too, tested positive. And then, the ground cracked up and the numbers steadily began crawling out. According to an estimate, around 3,500 of all the positive cases in the state are from the Koyambedu cluster alone. Intense contact-tracing led the health department to truck drivers, loadsmen, wholesalers, retail vendors and thousands of customers. The task of tracing was difficult as their contacts included multitude of customers and people they might have travelled with. Along with the vegetables, fruits and flowers that were sold to people and transported to other districts, the virus unloaded onto the contacts, severely affecting Chengalpattu, Cuddalore, Tiruvallur, Kancheepuram, Ariyalur and Perambalur districts. Given the demand for vegetables, a section of people had even started a new business of vending them in carts, and in the process, created another web of spreaders.
The splinters of the Koyambedu explosion fell on the neighbours as well. Migrants from Andhra Pradesh, Kerala and Karnataka, who worked in the market and returned to their home state in the last week of April, carried the next viral spark. But then, there was cross clustering as well, with returnees from Maharashtra, Karnataka, Rajasthan, Telangana and Andhra Pradesh testing positive, which is one reason why the government is wary of fresh arrivals. A few hours before Lockdown 4.0 was unveiled by the Centre, Tamil Nadu extended it till May 31, easing curbs only in 25 districts. The government also found an alternative location for the Koyambedu market. But there are questions that need answers. Isn’t it a tad late in the day? Shouldn’t the market have been shut earlier, sensing the impending explosion? The state, however, has squarely blamed the adamant traders for refusing to shift base. Finally, did we really need an intense lockdown from April 26-April 29? Didn’t that stoke the biggest viral fire? Will there be no fourth cluster — of TASMAC liquor counters? We keep our fingers crossed.
Subhashini Dinesh
Deputy Resident Editor, Tamil Nadu subhashini@newindianexpress.com