Chennai crosses five lakh mark in COVID-19 tests

“All five lakh tests are RT-PCR tests, which is the only testing method recommended by the ICMR to identify infection. The Chief Minister has been instructing us to achieve 13,000 tests per day. We have done close to 13,000 RT-PCR tests on Saturday. After the complete lockdown was imposed on June 19, our main strategy was to increase the testing,” said G Prakash, Chennai Corporation Commissioner, while flagging off a motorbike awareness rally. On Friday alone, the civic body tested 12,259 samples, of which 1,243 tested positive, which is 10 per cent positivity rate.

Prakash also explained that the situation in the city is improving and said, “Until last month, the positivity rate in the city was around 40 per cent. Now, we have brought it to 10-12 per cent. We will bring it further down to 8-10 per cent by the end of this month, and then to 5 per cent.” Meanwhile, around 8.5 lakh city residents had been put under quarantine since the outbreak of which around 5 lakh citizens completed their quarantine cycle. Apart from this, the civic body is bringing around 40,000 infected persons, their family members, contacts, and persons awaiting test results, under quarantine every day.

In a positive sign in COVID management in the city, Royapuram, the zone that was worst-affected with the highest number of cases earlier, has attained the doubling time of 97 days, which is highest in the city. “Overall, the city’s doubling rate has improved to 47 days, which is much higher than the national average of 21 days. Tondiarpet and Thiru Vi Ka Nagar also have shown improvement. This is due to the intervention of the civic body and other factors,” Prakash said.