With two deaths, 447 new Covid-19 cases, Tamil Nadu moves to second spot on national list

CHENNAI: Tamil Nadu on Thursday recorded 447 Covid-19 cases, its lowest count in the last 10 days, but now has more people infected than all states except Maharashtra. There are 9,674 cases in TN, 82 more than in Gujarat. Two more people died taking the state’s Covid tally to 66.
Chennai reported 363 cases and neighbouring Tiruvallur 15, Kancheepuram eight, and Chengalpet nine. In Sivaganga, where no cases were recorded since April 20, one person, who came from Maharashtra, tested positive. At least 21 more people who came from Maharashtra and two from Qatar tested positive, said health minister C Vijayabaskar.
For the first time since May 4, the state reported fewer than 500 cases, but the number brought no relief to epidemiologists, virologists, and infectious diseases experts, because the number of people being tested has come down. “The medical expert committee has told the state that the increasing incidence of the disease is not a cause for concern as long as testing is high and mortalities are low. We have tested more than 2.9 lakh people so far,” Vijayabaskar said, minutes before the state medical bulletin was released. The medical bulletin showed 11,773 people were tested for the infection on Thursday, nearly 900 less than compared to 12,666 on Wednesday. With the incidence, the positivity rate has dropped to 3.80% from 4.02%. Positivity rate is number of fresh case over number of people tested that day.
Since May 9, the state has been testing people coming via ships, flights, trains and by road. The state health department does not have the number of such people screened. The media bulletin said 1,275 who came by flights were tested of whom nine people tested positive (results of 348 samples are pending). “Swabs are taken at the airports, seaports or facility centres for every inbound passenger. If they are positive they are sent to hospital for consultation,” Vijayabaskar said.
Experts say positivity rate must go down organically without reducing the number of people who are being tested. After the meeting with Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami, National Institute of Epdimiology deputy director Dr Prahdeep Kaur said the state should ramp up testing. “Testing will tell where cases are. When tests are reduced there may be surprises lurking. The last thing we want during a pandemic is a sudden increase in the number of cases,” she said.
On May 6 when the state announced it had screened 13,281 people, 771 people (5.8%) were positive for the viral infection. Three days later, when the test numbers dropped to 12,999 people, positivity rate dropped to 4% after 526 people were positive. The state tested 12666 people on Wednesday and the positivity rate was 4%. On Thursday, the number of cases, people tested and the positivity rate dropped.
But the state added two more labs -- Bioline Laboratory, Coimbatore, and Premier Health Centre, Chennai – for testing. Now, Tamil Nadu has 58 authorised Covid-19 testing labs, including 38 in the government sector.
The Rajiv Gandhi Government General Hospital recorded two deaths – a 43-year-old man, who has been on dialysis with complaints of Hepatitis C and hypertension and a 45-year-old woman with diabetes mellitus and hypertension and hypothyroidism.
In the same hospital, five staff nurses tested positive. On Thursday, six doctors – three from private hospitals –and five dentists from the Madras Dental College tested positive. At least 64 people were discharged from hospitals across the state taking the total number of people discharged to 2,240. At the end of the day, active cases went up to 7,365 from 6,984 on Wednesday.Pushpa.Narayan