Covid-19 cases on the rise in Tamil Nadu

The number of daily Covid-19 cases are on the upswing in Tamil Nadu for the past few weeks prompting the state government to ask district collectors to ramp up prevention measures and strictly enforce the Covid appropriate behaviour like wearing of masks.

Officials said the increased presence of variants like BA.5, and BA.2.38 among others, as revealed during genomic sequence analysis of Covid-19 positive samples, could be the reason for the increase of positive cases in the state.

The number of active cases which stood at just 629 on June 1 rose to over 11,094 on June 30. The daily cases, which hovered around the 20s in the second week of April, have now gone up to 2,000. Though the cases are on the rise, the hospitalisation is low with less than 1 per cent of the 65,000 beds earmarked for Covid-19 patients under occupation as on June 30.

Experts say though there was no need to panic, necessary precaution should be taken to ensure cases don’t increase exponentially. “The numbers that we see every day are very low because many people don’t get tested. Only when people get tested will we come to know the real numbers. The hospitalisation rate and other indicators point to mild infection,” a public health export told DH.

A recent analysis done by the government said about 26 per cent of patients got infected from their visit to markets/malls/common places, 18 per cent from workplaces, 16 per cent during travel and about 12 per cent in educational institutions/hostel/ training centres.

The government has also asked authorities to ensure that people follow Covid-19 appropriate behaviour like proper wearing of masks, social distancing, and hand hygiene.

Chennai, its neighbouring districts of Chengalpattu, Tiruvallur, and Kanchipuram, and Coimbatore are some of the areas which have been reporting an increase in the daily cases.

The government has already advised the district administrations to distribute a tablet pack containing paracetamol, Vitamin-C and Zinc tablets to positive patients and periodically monitor them with pulse oximeters. It has also advised that serious cases and high-risk individuals be treated at district government hospitals where 50 to 100 beds have been earmarked for Covid-19 patients. Tamil Nadu has so far reported 34 lakh Covid-19 cases with 38,026 deaths since the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic in March 2020.