Data shows that five zones — Kodambakkam, Anna Nagar, Ambattur, Valasaravakkam and Adyar — have contributed to this spike. The zones recorded more than 100 cases a day for the past two days. Zone-wise figures for Sunday will be released only on Monday morning, but it is likely that a similar trend will be visible.
Health secretary J Radhakrishnan told TOI that Anna Nagar, Kodambakkam, Ambattur and Adyar were the zones in focus now. “Greater Chennai Corporation is testing an average of 12,000 people everyday. We are now planning more aggressive but focussed testing,” he said. The aim was to ensure that testing is at least 10 times more than average number of positive cases, Radhakrishnan said.
“As of now, the positivity rate is 10% and the aim is to bring it down to 5%. This will lead to a drop in active cases as well,” Radhakrishnan said.
Chennai’s test positivity rate (TPR), which is the number of Covid-19 positive cases per every 100 tests, was around 8-9% last week. With the daily numbers going above 1,000, the TPR in the last two days has gone up to 10%. The city corporation aims to make it around 7% by August end.
This, however, is a tough job as a single person could be a super-spreader but the civic body was taking efforts to prevent such a situation, he added.
As for the high number of cases in Ambattur, Radhakrishnan said spill over cases from Chennai in these areas (which are under GCC limits but fall under Tiruvallur district) was contributing to an increase in Tiruvallur district.
“In the southern part of the city, cases spill into Chengalpet. We are now developing micro plans to extend Chennai strategy of aggressive testing to neighbouring districts,” he said.
Source: https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/chennai/spike-in-5-zones-pushes-city-daily-case-count-above-1000/articleshow/77579602.cms
