CHENNAI: Though the Covid-19 cases in the State have started to decline again, health experts opine it’s too early to judge that the third wave has begun to flatten. The test positivity rate (TPR), which on January 25 had reached 20.2 per cent — the highest during the third wave — has come down to 16.2 per cent on Sunday. While on January 25, the State had tested 1,48,469 samples and reported 30,055 cases, on Sunday, it tested 1,36,952 samples and logged 22,238 cases.
Dr TS Selvavinayagam, Director of Public Health, however, said it was too early to take a definite call. “We need to open up depending on our health system’s capacity to handle, including mortality and morbidity patterns. This is what we are doing now with the opening of schools,” he added.
Speaking to TNIE, Health Secretary J Radhakrishnan said it was very preliminary to say the cases are declining or the wave is flattening. Though the cases have come down in some of the districts, the situation in those bordering Kerala and Karnataka is still to be monitored, he added.Radhakrishnan said 20 per cent of the cases were still having the delta variant, and that it posed a threat even as only five per cent of the active cases in the State are in hospitals.
He said the deaths were being reported in the unvaccinated, partially-vaccinated and the elderly with comorbidities. The health secretary urged the public to get along with their daily activities, as suggested by international public health experts, and get vaccinated and follow Covid-19 appropriate behaviour. He advised people who test positive to visit doctors and get screened instead of deciding the severity of the infection themselves.
The surge in the State had started since December 29, a day when it reported 739 cases. It may be noted that fresh cases in other States have also started declining.Meanwhile, Dr Manikandan Nesan, an Epidemiologist based in Chennai, said the R-naught (R0) value of TN has dropped from a peak of 3.46 to 1.00 on Saturday.