Chennai: If you are already in shock over the rising number of coronavirus cases in Tamilnadu, particularly Chennai, get ready more shockers.
For, officials have said the number of Covid-19 positive persons would increase in the coming days, before the curve could start flattening from next week.
According to Chennai Corporation special nodal officer J Radhakrishnan, “As we are doing targeted testing, the number of Covid-19 cases reported from Chennai will be high, at least for the next five to six days.”
He further said that since the Health department was focussing on clusters such as the North Chennai cluster and Koyambedu cluster in the city, people will have to brace themselves for a higher number of cases in the coming days.
“We need not fear looking at the numbers. Over the past nine days we have been doing targeted testing. First it was the Koyambedu cluster and also the North Chennai cluster. We have to contextualise this increase in numbers with the increase in testing. We have to remember that Tamilnadu has been doing the highest number of tests for detecting Covid-19 in the country,” he added.
Radhakrishnan said targetted testing in clusters such as north Chennai had to be carried out in the past nine days to contain the spread of coronavirus among relatives of residents who tested positive for coronavirus.
“We are testing 3,500 persons with 19 additional teams. Many people have a question about the rising trend of positive cases in Chennai. We cannot stop testing contacts of those who tested positive. The number of persons tested for Covid-19 is high in Tamilnadu and Chennai has the largest number of the testing centres,” he said further.
Radhakrishnan added: “The death rate has dipped in the city to – 0.68 per cent. We are focusing containment measures on emerging hotspots. As many as 32 Covid-19 care centres with 500 beds have been readied in the city.”