Tamil Nadu sees surge in coronavirus COVID-19 cases; 36 districts fall under Red Zone, only one in Green

Chennai: Tamil Nadu has witnessed a significant rise in coronavirus cases from the first week of April. Despite a recovery rate of 54%, the state has seen a daily spike of over 100 cases in the last three days. On Tuesday, the state has 121 cases, 104 on Wednesday, and 161 on Thursday. 

Even as the second phase of the nationwide lockdown is scheduled to end on May 3, the latest central government data on the classification of districts has revealed that 36 of Tamil Nadu’s 37 districts fall under the Red and Orange Zone. This indicates that the lockdown relaxations are highly unlikely in large parts of the state as 12 districts are under the red zones while 24 of them are under the orange zone. 

According to the state government data, 26 districts fall under Red zones, 10 under Orange, and only Krishnagiri district come under the green zone. The state government has considered the districts with 15 or above cases, with a doubling time lesser than 4 days as Red zones. The districts marked in Orange are the ones with less than 15 cases or no new case in the last fortnight. Green districts are those which have no new cases in the last 28 days. 

In the last 3 days alone, the state has recorded 386 new cases, of which over 80% are from Chennai alone. The state has so far recorded 2323 coronavirus positive cases and has seen 1258 recoveries and 27 deaths. 

Currently, there are 1035 active cases in the state, of which 702 belong to Chennai. This is a serious cause for concern, given how the capital city has the highest density of population in the state. Chennai has also seen cases among the frontline health workers besides policemen, journalists, vegetable vendors, among others.

The state government has attributed the sudden spike in cases to the higher rate of testing. The state-provided data says that 1.10 lakh people have been tested so far, while as many as 9643 samples were tested on Wednesday alone. The testing has come a long way when compared to April 1st when even the total samples tested were merely 2,726.

The month of April has seen the state government announce and implement a slew of measures to contain and COVID-19 cases, including a door-to-door screening campaign that involved health and civic bodyworkers. Each worker would cover about 150 homes in a Containment Zone (within a 5km radius and 2km buffer of every positive case reported) and screen the residents for any symptoms such as fever, cold, cough, breathlessness etc. 

The screening also kept track of vulnerable groups such as senior citizens and those with other health complications. The government machinery would also recommend testing, isolation, and other measures as required. 

Chennai Trade Center, the city’s largest exhibition venue too has been converted into a quarantine facility, when the need may arise. The facility has been taken over by the Chennai Corporation and over 600 quarantine beds have been placed in the various exhibition halls. 

The city’s Corporation is also considering the use of government and private schools as quarantine facilities, to meet the requirements that may arise in the coming weeks. The city currently has over 10,000 quarantine beds, in addition to the hospital beds. 

A major cause for concern in Chennai has been a recent revelation by the head of the civic authority at a press meet, who stated that 98% of the new cases in Chennai were asymptomatic. This indicated the high risk of exposure in the densely populated city. 

“There is evidence and clear statistics from some Western countries and few of their states of a large number of asymptomatic cases. A study in California stated that for every 1 positive case that gets recorded, there could be anywhere between 10 to 100 asymptomatic cases, thus leading to the conclusion that there is always a possibility of the virus spreading like wildfire," Dr Subramanian Swaminathan, a top Infectious Diseases specialist, told WION. 

"Every person who is asymptomatic would act as a carrier of the virus, without himself/herself knowing about it and could end up transmitting it to several others. In most cases, it is the aged, those with other medical complications that are in a vulnerable stage,” he added.