Covid-19: Chennai’s test positivity rate dips to 15% from 21% in seven days – Times of India

Chennai: As Chennai continues to see a dip in Covid-19 cases and its test positivity rate dropped by nearly 6 percentage points in a week, the number of active cases across Tamil Nadu, too, fell for the first time in 84 days on Friday. The number of active cases, which has been on the rise since March 6, fell to 3,12,386 on Friday from 3,13,048 on Thursday.
The city’s seven-day average test positivity rate (TPR) — which is the number of people testing positive for every 100 samples — dropped from 21.5% recorded in May 14-20 to 15.3% between May 21 and May 27. It was 23.2% a fortnight ago. An average of 30,000 tests are being conducted by the city corporation every day.
Cases have dropped at two major disease hotspots in the state, Coimbatore (3,937) and Chennai (2,762), compared to Thursday. The state, however, witnessed its highest single-day toll of 486 deaths on Friday. This takes the total Covid deaths in TN to 22,775 — fourth highest in the country after Maharashtra (93,198), Karnataka (27,405) and Delhi (23,951). Chennai recorded a high of 7,564 positive cases on May 12, which dropped to 2,779 on Thursday, and 2,762 on Friday. Friday’s testing numbers were not declared yet.
Active cases in the city dropped from 47,667 a week ago to 43,624 on May 27. Except Shollinganallur and Perungudi zones, active cases in the remaining 13 zones have dropped.
Chennai has been under a strict lockdown for more than three weeks, with further increase in restrictions from Monday.
Corporation officials said this is a result of multi-pronged strategy which includes door-to-door fever survey, around 400 daily fever camps to identify symptomatic cases, and home triaging to ensure patients don’t travel to triaging centres and expose themselves to others.
Experts say that this is a positive trend, but we must also look at the availability of oxygen and ICU beds.
Dr S Subramanian, an infectious diseases expert, said that he was cautiously optimistic that Chennai may have reached its peak. “However, with this virus, it is difficult to say. We must continue to remain vigilant for two more weeks. We should not be in a situation where we open up and cases increase again,” he said.
He also pointed out that though Chennai’s cases were decreasing, those in the other districts were on the rise, which was another reason for Chennai residents to stay vigilant.