Only one of Tamil Nadu’s 37 districts in green zone; Chennai sees surge in cases, most are asymptomatic

The coronavirus statistics from Tamil Nadu can be aptly described as bittersweet - on the one hand, there is a 54% recovery, while on the other hand, the state has seen a daily spike of over a 100 cases for the last three days. On Tuesday, the state witnessed 121 cases, then 104 on Wednesday and 161 on Thursday. Such a hat-trick run of 100+ cases itself is a first for Tamil Nadu that started seeing its significant rise in COVID-19 numbers from the first week of April.  

While the second phase of the pan-India lockdown is scheduled to end on Monday, May 3rd, the latest central government data on the classification of districts has revealed that 36 of Tamil Nadu’s 37 districts fall under the Red and Orange Zone. This indicates that the relaxations of the lockdown rules(if any) are highly unlikely in large parts of the state given that 12 districts are categorized under red zones and 24 of them are under orange. 

However, the state government data on districts in Tamil Nadu paints a more alarming picture, it depicts 26 districts under Red zones, and 10 others under orange and only Krishnagiri district under the green zone. The state government has considered the districts with 15 or above cases, with a doubling time lesser than 4 days as red zones. The districts marked in Orange are the ones with less than 15 cases or no new case in the last fortnight. Green districts are the ones with no new cases in the last 28 days. 

Over the last 3 days alone, the state has recorded 386 new cases, of which over 80% are from Chennai alone. The state so far has recorded 2323 COVID-19 positive cases and has recorded 1258 recoveries and 27 deaths. Currently, there are 1035 active cases in the state, of which 702 belong in Chennai. This is a serious cause for concern given how the capital city has the highest population and population density of all the districts in the state. Chennai has seen cases amongst frontline staff such as Doctors, health workers, Policemen, besides journalists, vegetable vendors, among others.

The state government has attributed the sudden spike in cases to the higher rate of testing. While state-provided data says that 1.10 lakh people have been tested so far, it also adds that 9643 samples were tested on Wednesday alone. Going by these numbers provided by the government, clearly, the testing has come a long way when compared to April 1st, when even the total samples tested were merely 2,726.

The month of April has seen the state government announce and implement a slew of measures to contain and trace Covid-19 cases. The notable ones include a door-to-door screening campaign that involved health and civic body workers. Each worker would cover about 150 homes in a Containment Zone (within a 5km radius and 2km buffer of every positive case reported) and screen the residents for any symptoms such as fever, cold, cough, breathlessness etc. The screening also kept track of vulnerable groups such as senior citizens and those with other health complications. Based on the symptoms so observed, the government machinery would recommend testing, isolation and other measures.. 

Chennai Trade Center, the city’s largest exhibition venue too has been converted into a quarantine facility, when the need may arise. The facility has been taken over by the Chennai Corporation and over 600 quarantine beds have been placed in the various exhibition halls. The city’s corporation is also considering the use of government and private schools as quarantine facilities, to meet the requirements that may arise in the coming weeks. The city currently has over 10,000 quarantine beds, in addition to the hospital beds.

A major cause for concern in Chennai has been a recent revelation by the head of the civic authority at a press meet, who stated that 98% of the new cases in Chennai were asymptomatic. This indicated the high risk of exposure in the densely populated city. 

“There is evidence and clear statistics from some Western countries and few of their states of a large number of asymptomatic cases. A study in California stated that for every 1 positive case that gets recorded, there could be anywhere between 10 to 100 asymptomatic cases, thus leading to the conclusion that there is always a possibility of the virus spreading like wildfire. Every person who is asymptomatic would act as a carrier of the virus, without himself/herself knowing about it and could end up transmitting it to several others. In most cases, it is the aged, those with other medical complications that are in a vulnerable stage” Dr. Subramanian Swaminathan a top Infectious Diseases specialist told Zee Media.