TN likely in Stage 3 as source of infection untraceable in patients

While the COVID-19 mortality rate is less than 2 per cent in TN and infection rate is also much better when compared to other States, Tamil Nadu could have entered the third stage of the pandemic as identifying the source of infection remains untraceable for several patients, a senior government official said. He also hinted that the lockdown could continue even after May 3 as cases continue to mushroom in urban pockets.

Unlike Maharashtra, Delhi and Madhya Pradesh, the infection rate in TN has dropped from 13 per cent at the start of the month to 3.6/3.8 per cent. However, despite the lockdown, new cases have been reported in Dharmapuri and Pudukkottai districts, where no COVID-19 cases were reported till last week.

“And there are cases in Tiruvannamalai, where the District Collector has reported positive cases without any travel history or family members infected,” the official said. He added that Stage 4 will be marked by a massive number of positive cases from hotspots and going by WHO projections, the pandemic is here to stay at least for another two months.

Thanks to the extended lockdown and police patrol, the State has reduced the number of active cases to less than 900 with more recoveries. Further, at any point of time, there are more than 1,600 high-risk people who had been in contact with positive cases, the official explained, adding that with more medical equipment coming in soon, number of ventilators will be increased to around 4,000.

“The intense lockdown for five cities had to be implemented as the cases were not coming down. Further with a lot of asymptomatic cases being reported, we do not know how many positive cases are away from the radar of the Public Health Department,” another official said. “With the four-day severe lockdown in highly infected cities planned from Sunday, the State is hoping to bring down the infection rate further down, the official said, adding that COVID-19 wards in all major government hospitals have more than 20 patients at any particular time.

Moreover with interstate and international travel banned for about a month now, the number of people quarantined, both in their homes and government facilities, has come down to around 25,000 and is expected to dip further during the next few days.