Coimbatore district’s COVID-19 positivity rate stood at 6.1 % on Thursday, slightly above the target which Chief Minister Edappadi K. Palaniswami urged the district administration to achieve on Wednesday.
In a video conference held to review COVID-19 situation in the State on Wednesday, Mr. Palaniswami urged Collector K. Rajamani to bring down the rate below 5 %.
Though the Health Department is hopeful that the positivity rate will further reduce in the coming days, the festival season is posing a challenging situation, according to officials.
The Chief Minister had also instructed the district administration to be more vigilant during festival season besides urging it to bring down the daily case load below 100 and death rate below 1 %.
Deputy Director of Health Services G. Ramesh Kumar said Coimbatore district’s death rate stood at 1.27 % on Thursday.
According to the official, the positivity rate was below Thursday’s 6.1 % on Wednesday and the figure will definitely decline with the co-operation of the public and continuing efforts of the Revenue and Health Departments, Coimbatore Corporation and the police.
“Officials with the Revenue Department, Coimbatore Corporation and the police are giving instructions to people in shops, markets and other busy areas in view of the festival season. We expect to achieve the target soon,” he said.
The official said, the Health Department and the health wing of Corporation were together collecting around 5,000 swab samples for COVID-19 tests a day in the district at present.
As per statistics shared by the Health Department, the district’s daily case load fluctuated between 200 and 300 in the one-week period up to Thursday. The figure remained below 250 in the last three days.