Covid-19 in Tamil Nadu: High numbers not a worry, but don’t let your guard down

CHENNAI: Tamil Nadu has the second -highest number of Covid-19 cases in the country at 46,504 and nearly 73% are in Chennai. The numbers are enough to strike fear. But actually just 20,678 people are still under treatment, of whom 15,385 are in Chennai. And going by the number of Covid beds that the government claims to have, the state and city are adequately equipped to tackle the pandemic. Medical experts, however, sound a word of caution.

A government official said that as of Monday about one-third or more than 5,000 of the active cases in Chennai are under home care, while the rest are in hospitals, health centres and Covid care centres.
On Monday, health minister Dr C Vijayabaskar said Tamil Nadu has 75,000 beds for Covid patients, 17,500 in Chennai alone. According to the state health department, as of Sunday Chennai had 3,526 people in home care monitored by government hospitals, 1,716 in government medical college hospitals, 408 in other government hospitals, 1,516 in Covid care centres and another 714 in government health centres. Officials said the numbers may not add up as the state awaits updates from the Greater Chennai Corporation on test results and home care cases.
Medical experts have, however, warned that cases would go up in the coming weeks and the state may not be able to manage with the given resources. Virologists and epidemiologists said Tamil Nadu is in the limb of the curve and the state would see its peak by mid-July, which would sustain for a week before dropping.
Experts suggest strict enforcement of use and proper disposal of masks even in hamlets, social distancing, effective triaging, and regular audit of ground level data.
Dr Subramanian Swaminathan said with around 80% of the cases asymptomatic, a large number of people could be managed at home, reducing the burden on hospitals. “Even cities like New York and London ran out of beds and these are cities that have more beds per thousand population compared to anywhere in India,” he said.
“The numbers don’t matter. Epidemiologists have already said it is going to get worse. The need of the hour is a proper mitigation plan. Instead of dealing with containment, we need to plan protocols for mitigation,” he said.
"We do have a system here to monitor home care people through health workers. In private hospitals, the doctors are calling up their patients and checking their health status. But we could streamline this and bring of it under one centralised control centre for better management," said Dr K Kolandasamy, former director of public health.