Chennai: Healthcare experts have said the increasing R value in Tamilnadu is a cause for concern, though they preferred to wait a week before declaring the spike as the start of the third wave or a blip on the graph.
The R-naught or the average number of people who will contract a contagious disease from one person is more than one in at least 18 districts. Tiruvarur and Krishnagiri have the highest R value at around 1.3, while Chennai has 1.2. Tirupattur and Tirunelveli had the lowest R value at 0.78 and 0.8.
A few days ago, the Union Health Ministry said the R-value of SARS-CoV-2 virus in eight States is more than one, which is a cause for concern as this value, also known as the reproductive number of the infection, denotes how fast the infection is spreading.
Institute of Mathematical Science, Chennai has revealed that Chennai, Kolkata, Bengaluru, Delhi too have an R factor of over 1.
“The cities of Chennai, Kolkata, Bengaluru, and Delhi also are showing R above 1. This suggests a rise in the active cases that are coordinated across widely scattered regions which would be hard to contain,” researcher Sitabhra Sinha said.