City reports 194 Covid cases, up from 172 cases on Monday

City reports 194 Covid cases, up from 172 cases on Monday

Pushpa.Narayan@timesgroup.com

Chennai: 29.12.2021

Citing increase in fresh Covid-19 infections and test positivity rate, the Tamil Nadu public health department on Tuesday raised concerns of the next possible wave in Chennai.

The city reported 194 new Covid-19 cases, accounting for nearly a third of the 619 cases reported across Tamil Nadu. Though17 districts reported an increased in daily cases, Chennai recorded the sharpest spike of 22 cases more than its Monday tally of 172 infections.

Over the past week, the city recorded a steady increase in daily cases. The test positivity rate, which was around 0.6% in November, is now nearly 1% though Chennai has increased its daily tests to nearly 19,000 from around 12,000 a day.

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‘Transmission rates higher due to dense population of Chennai’

“We have not seen a steep increase in hospitalisations yet, but the city now has 1,519 active cases,” said health secretary J Radhakrishnan.

At the peak of the second wave on May 12, Chennai reported 7,564 new cases. Since then cases began to fall rapidly. On July 7, fresh cases fell below the 200-mark and on November 28 the city reported 107 new Covid-19 cases. On that day, the city had 1,182 people under treatment for the viral infection. The following day, it dropped to 105. Since then, until December 21, fresh cases were hovering between 115 and 132.

Many factors have led to the surge, Radhakrishnan said. “The transmission rates are higher in the city because of its dense population. We are seeing clusters from weddings, funerals, reunion and workplaces. The list of international passengers who test positive for Covid at the Chennai airport is added to the city,” he said. Along with Chennai, fresh cases in the neighbouring Chengalpet district increased to 59 on Tuesday from 50 on Monday and Tiruvallur reported an increase to 22 from 15 during the same time.

Meanwhile, Tamil Nadu health minister Ma Subramanian said there were indications of Omicron clusters within the city. On Saturday, he announced that at least 54 people, including doctors, nurses and medical students, of Rajiv Gandhi Government General Hospital (RGGGH), tested positive for Covid-19. The source of infection was one of their patients, a diabetic, admitted to the hospital for a skin graft procedure on December 17. On Tuesday, after testing 3,965 contacts, the total number of cases in the cluster rose to 94.

While there was no travel history reported in any of the patients, at least 64 of them had the S-gene dropout – an indicator that they could be carrying the Omicron variant. All patients have a mild form of the infection and are stable, the hospital said. “But before patients could be tracked and isolated, the infection had spread,” he said.

Most patients carrying the new variant showed mild symptoms of the infection. “They have a cold, sore throat, fatigue and mild temperature and many don’t meet the doctor or isolate themselves. In the absence of Covid-appropriate behaviour, the infection spreads rapidly,” said director of public health Dr T S Selvavinayagam.