COVID-19 in Chennai: With a 50% drop in cases, the city signals a positive sign!

Amid the lockdown, Chennai has witnessed a decline in the number of people tested positive for COVID-19 pandemic, which has signaled that the city has been halting the speed of the virus spread in its territory. The sign of flattening the curve of affected cases has come to the revelation after the percentile of the positive people in the city dropped by more than half while compared to the last month. 

The drop in the percentile has come amid aggressive testing in the city. According to the Greater Chennai Corporation, the TPR (Test Positivity Rate), which indicates the number of samples tested positive per hundred samples every day in the city, has declined to 16.52% on July 4 when it stood at 35% three weeks ago and the development has come when the city had been going through the intense lockdown to subdue the spread.

According to the corporation, the city had reported at least 1,500 positive cases each day against 5,000 to 5,500 samples tested in the second week of June and on Saturday, the city has tested 11,144 samples of which 1,842 returned positive, which is relatively lower than what was reported when carrying out the testing of 5,500 samples each day. The corporation has said that the city has recorded a fall in the TPR which stands at 16.52%.

Highlighting the development, Chennai Corporation Commissioner Prakash said that the civic body has been pacing up the testing and locating the symptomatic people and carriers at the early stage during the complete lockdown. Most people have locked up in their homes during which the authorities carried out aggressive testing. 

He stated that the elements like continuous testing in streets, fever camps, screening centers, and effective quarantine systems have played strong roles in reporting a fall after facing a peak of cases.  By citing that this has been the outcome of the efforts put by 40,000 people attached to the corporation, the commissioner stated that the decline was due to the steps initiated by the corporation amid the complete lockdown from July 19.

According to the reports, the installation of the fever camps in the city has aided the civic body to ramp up the testing. The corporation has conducted 500 fever camps every day from June 19 and the camps have screened over eight lakh people which further contributed to identify and locate the symptomatic people at the early stage to avoid the rampant spread.

Tamil Nadu Health Secretary J Radhakrishnan has asserted that the government has ensured to conduct consistent fever camps and sample collection across all the zones in the city. Earlier, it would take two to three days to spell the result of the samples, and duration was reduced and more samples were collected by the fever camps and if tested people went untested, it could have led for the grounds of rapid spread. 

On Sunday, Chennai has reported less than 2,000 cases for the second consecutive day. On Sunday, Chennai and its three adjacent districts of Kancheepuram, Thiruvallur, and Chengalpattu had accounted for 56% of cases in the state's tally of 4,150 cases while the contribution in the state's tally from these four districts stood at 72% two weeks ago.
 

 

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