CHENNAI: Tamil Nadu chief minister Edappadi K Palaniswami on Sunday said the state has been conducting 48,000 Covid-19 tests daily.
"This is the highest among all states," Palaniswami informed Prime Minister Narendra Modi when the latter called him over the phone.
Modi spoke to Palaniswami to take stock of measures being taken by the state government in its fight against Covid-19 and the medical treatment being provided to those affected.
The chief minister said Tamil Nadu was going "all out to contain the spread of the virus". Palaniswami assured the Prime Minister that the state was taking all "necessary steps" to ensure normalcy returns to the state.
"While the chief minister had mentioned about the average, the number of tests per day crossed the 50,000 mark on Saturday and the tests conducted exceeded 52,000 on Sunday. Right from the beginning, the strategy behind Tamil Nadu was aggressive testing. Without that, we will not be getting numbers in excess of 50,000 and it will continue," a senior official in the state government told TOI.
The tests being conducted are fairly distributed across the state and also to cover all segments of the society and not just frontline workers, he said. "The focus has been on increasing fever camps and identify patients with symptoms, besides following all the ICMR protocols. We are focusing on effective controls in containment zones to address the problem," the official said.
While the number of Covid tests conducted in Chennai has now crossed 13,000 a day, it is increasing in the districts. "While we were doing 250 – 300 tests a day in Madurai, it has crossed 4,500. In the case of Thiruvallur district, the number of tests has crossed 5,000," the official said.
Other states have undertaking a mix of RT-PCR tests and antibody tests. For instance, if Delhi conducts 20,000 tests a day, around 5,000 of that will be antibody tests. "But in Tamil Nadu, we have been carrying out tests using RT-PCR kits," the official said.
To determine the number of tests to be conducted in a day in a district, Tamil Nadu has worked out a formula, the official said. "
After arriving at the average number of positives per day for the past seven days of a week, we aim at conducting a minimum of 10 times that number of tests in that district," the official said.
"This is the highest among all states," Palaniswami informed Prime Minister Narendra Modi when the latter called him over the phone.
Modi spoke to Palaniswami to take stock of measures being taken by the state government in its fight against Covid-19 and the medical treatment being provided to those affected.
The chief minister said Tamil Nadu was going "all out to contain the spread of the virus". Palaniswami assured the Prime Minister that the state was taking all "necessary steps" to ensure normalcy returns to the state.
"While the chief minister had mentioned about the average, the number of tests per day crossed the 50,000 mark on Saturday and the tests conducted exceeded 52,000 on Sunday. Right from the beginning, the strategy behind Tamil Nadu was aggressive testing. Without that, we will not be getting numbers in excess of 50,000 and it will continue," a senior official in the state government told TOI.
The tests being conducted are fairly distributed across the state and also to cover all segments of the society and not just frontline workers, he said. "The focus has been on increasing fever camps and identify patients with symptoms, besides following all the ICMR protocols. We are focusing on effective controls in containment zones to address the problem," the official said.
While the number of Covid tests conducted in Chennai has now crossed 13,000 a day, it is increasing in the districts. "While we were doing 250 – 300 tests a day in Madurai, it has crossed 4,500. In the case of Thiruvallur district, the number of tests has crossed 5,000," the official said.
Other states have undertaking a mix of RT-PCR tests and antibody tests. For instance, if Delhi conducts 20,000 tests a day, around 5,000 of that will be antibody tests. "But in Tamil Nadu, we have been carrying out tests using RT-PCR kits," the official said.
To determine the number of tests to be conducted in a day in a district, Tamil Nadu has worked out a formula, the official said. "
After arriving at the average number of positives per day for the past seven days of a week, we aim at conducting a minimum of 10 times that number of tests in that district," the official said.
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