GCC not sitting back and relaxing even now when there is a sharp reduction in the COVID cases
Posted on: 09/Jun/2021 9:15:06 AM
In the middle of the month of May, the Chennai residents were in a state of shock as the daily Covid-19 cases touched a peak of 7500 cases. The TN government took superb measures to contain the spread of this infection are well known. Now, the daily Covid-19 cases have declined sharply and Chennai sees below 2000 daily cases. This has brought happiness on the faces of many.
It is learnt that in the last 2 weeks the average number of cases reported daily declined by 34% in Chennai. Fact is that there has been no uniform reduction of the cases across all the 15 GCC zones.
Zones such as Tondiarpet, Royapuram and Thiru Vi- Ka Nagar saw just marginal reduction in the number of Coronavirus cases. Tondiarpet zone saw 8% reduction in the number of cases and zones like Royapuram and Thiru Vi- Ka Nagar saw 10% and 16% reduction respectively.
During 25th to 31st May, the average number of cases reported daily in these zones together was 485 and between 2nd June and 7th June it went down to 429. It is worthy to note that in the Anna Nagar zone the average number of cases reported daily went from 309 in the previous week to 168 in the last week or nearly 50percent reduction. Truth is that the 3 zones stood out even if cases per lakhs population reported in the past 2 weeks were taken into account.
In the first wave last year, the GCC zones like Tondiarpet, Royapuram and Thiru Vi Ka Nagar were worst affected by Coronavirus infection. It is important to mention that these 3 zones have reported relatively fewer cases per lakhs in the second wave than other zones.
Over the last 2 weeks, these densely populated zones in north Chennai reported roughly the same number of cases. This has indicated the need for greater focus on bringing down the numbers in these zones as there are now relaxations made in the lock down. It is learnt that GCC zones like Adyar, Valasaravakkam, Madhavaram, Kodambakkam were other zones where percentage of decline were lower than Chennai average.
It was brought out by the Chennai Corporation commissioner Mr. Gagandeep Singh Bedi that Chennai city was not letting down its guard and surveillance across the city had been ramped up. He added that even when the cases have been reducing GCC has been testing around 32000 every day.
He also spoke about how private hospitals, pharmacies and scan centres in Chennai have been asked to report on those with Covid-19 symptoms. It must be noted that the testing strategy of GCC was focussed with testing of primary contacts, those contacts from government offices plus private hospitals that are likely to come in touch with more people.
