TIRUCHY: Tiruchy district, which was reporting high test positivity rate (TPR) hovering over 26% and 27% for Covid-19 in the first week of May, has now recorded a dip.
On May 29, the TPR was 20%, down from 25% the previous day. The number of tests conducted are also steady at about 6000 per day on an average.
The month of May has seen the highest number of cases and tests done in the district since the pandemic began. Tiruchy recorded 35799 cases in May (till 29th), out of 158510 tests done. The average positivity rate in May has jumped to 22.58% from 8.28% in April. In April, the number of cases reported was 9261.
Till April-end, the district was reporting less than 500 cases a day. It was only after May 14 that Tiruchy began reporting more than 1000 cases daily. The highest number of cases reported was 1775 on May 26. Health officials attributed the increase in cases in May to inter-district travel before lockdown was announced, and the movement of people. The intense lockdown will bear fruit by next week, hope officials. They said that it was too early to let the guard down and said that testing would remain high. Fever camps and door to door screenings have helped identify cases at early stages, said Collector S Sivarasu.
“We have constituted about 3500 monitoring teams in the district. These teams cover 50 houses each per day in rural, urban and town panchayat areas. They carry a pulse oximeter and thermal scanner. If anyone has saturation below 94, it is immediately reported to the health officials and they are shifted to a Covid Care Centre. We will continue these efforts and hope to see further reduction in cases in the next week,” Sivarasu said.
Focus is also on rural areas, which had started reporting high number of cases. Manachanallur, Thiruverambur, Lalgudi, Manapparai have been reporting increased cases. Focus has been on reducing cases in rural areas, the Collector said.