Tuesday, August 11, 2020

Virudhunagar crosses 10K Covid-19 cases

Virudhunagar crosses 10K Covid-19 cases

Ananth.MK@timesgroup.com

Madurai:11.08.2020

Virudhunagar with 10,155 cases has become the second district in south after Madurai to touch the five-digit mark. After crossing 1,000 cases on July 7, the district added more than 9,000 cases so far. The district had recorded more than 500 cases a day once, more than 400 cases thrice, 300 or more cases on 10 occasions and more than 200 cases on seven days. As many as 577 cases were reported on July 28. The district got the warning bell when cases started to climb when e-pass free travel was allowed and people started frequenting neighbouring Madurai in June. Health department officials said that the second warning bell was when Madurai crossed 10,000 cases on July 27.

Aggressive testing by conducting 2,858 fever camps, which included around 100 a day for the last few days, help bring down the daily positive cases. The average daily cases in the district between August 5 and 9 are only 140 as against 310 a day during the previous four weeks. Of the 1,740 hamlets in the district, 361 hamlets had people affected by Covid-19 and only 130 have active cases. The number of containment zones in the district was reduced from 177 on Saturday to 108 on Monday. “When five or more cases are reported from a locality we form containment zones there and it will continue till a door-todoor screening for fever and sample collection is completed,” Virudhunagar district collector R Kannan told TOI.

While Sivakasi, Virudhunagar and Aruppukottai towns and the adjoining rural areas have more active cases it has started coming down in the eight other blocks. Though testing capacity of the district is only 1,000 a day sample collection has been increased to 4,000 a day last week in a phased manner over the last three weeks. A special team under the district revenue officer is coordinating sample testing mechanism as 75% of the samples have to be sent to other districts for testing. Around 2,000 samples are sent to Coimbatore every day, followed by 1,000 samples on alternate days to Chennai, 1,000 on alternate days to Erode and 500 on alternate days to Kanyakumari for testing.

Covid-19 toll in south TN goes past 1,000

Madurai: On one hand the Covid-19 positivity rate is on the decline and some districts in the south, including Madurai, are showing a downward trend in adding new cases, the number of deaths and the death rate is steadily on the rise. On Monday the total deaths in the 10 southern districts has climbed to 1,042. The southern districts account for 20.7% of the total of 5,041Covid-19 deaths in the state. The average death rate in the region against the total of 62,046 positive cases is 1.55%. Though it is less than the state’s average of 1.66%, the increasing trend in death rate is a concern. A study of the death rate in the southern districts on a 10-day interval shows that was it was 0.90% on June 30,1.17% on July 10, 1.24% on July 20 and 1.31% on July 30 and has climbed to 1.55% on August 10. TNN

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