Those parts of TN with Coronavirus under control to be given priority for relaxing curbs
Posted on: 04/Jun/2021 9:21:47 AM
The situation now in TN is such that there are no epidemiological reasons to extend the lockdown uniformly in TN for controlling the spread of the infection. This was brought out by some public health experts. For devising a strategy, various factors that must be taken into consideration are vaccinations, people behaviour and viral mutations. They were of the view that lockdown was not the only solution.
Senior virologist, Dr. Jacob John expressed his thoughts. He spoke about how a week after fresh cases began to drop from the peak of 36,184 cases on 21st May 2021, the active cases in TN also began to reduce from 28th of May. This has happened for the first time since 6th March 2021.Any decision on the lockdown must be taken considering these things.
In April, the growth rate of cases was at its peak at around 9% and after the fall in this momentum peak then touched numerical peak on 21st May 2021. Truth is that on 21st May the growth rate dropped to 2percent. The growth rate was almost negative (minus 0.1%) by the time active cases began to fall. Dr Jacob john was of the view that there was no need epidemiological reason to extend the lockdown in Tamil Nadu.
In the Chennai region, the Covid 19 cases have fallen drastically and the lockdown must be relaxed in these parts of TN. This was mentioned on Wednesday by Dr. Prabhdeep Kaur, deputy director, NIE.
She even explained that the second Covid-19 wave started and peaked in different parts of TN at different times. Therefore, the same rules of lockdown must not be extended to all the districts belonging to TN.
It was later highlighted by Dr. Jacob John that the activity inside the hospitals is more than in the community. Point is that there is a 12 to 14 days time gap between fall in fresh Corona cases and peaking of deaths. He concluded that tier-2 cities and small towns must forecast mortality peaks, plan human resources, drugs etc. Information is that there is a large population that is unprotected and due to this the threat of third Covid-19 infection wave remains.
