CHENNAI WILL CONTINUE TO SEE A RAPID RISE IN COVID19 CASES, SAYS CHENNAI’S SPECIAL OFFICER J RADHAKRISHNAN

Chennai’s Special Zonal officer, J Radhakrishnan told the media on Sunday that the number of cases in Chennai will continue to surge. “As we are doing targeted testing, the number of COVID-19 cases reported from Chennai will be high, he said during a press meet.

On the same day, the city reported its highest single- day hike in number of cases with 506 cases reported. 

He explained that the Health department is focusing on Coronavirus clusters such as North Chennai and Koyambedu, hence they are anticipating the number of cases to go up.  

“We need not fear looking at the numbers. Over the past nine days we have been doing targeted testing. First it was the Koyambedu cluster and also the North Chennai cluster. We have to contextualize this increase in numbers with the increase in testing. We have to remember that Tamil Nadu has been doing the highest number of tests for detecting COVID-19 in the country,” he said during the press meet. 

Currently Tamil Nadu has the highest testing rate in the Country. The state is testing almost 13,000 samples on a daily basis. 

Radhakrishnan also highlighted that out of 200 wards, only 2 wards had more than 300 cases in the city. “119 wards in the city have less than 10 cases and about 60 wards have between 11-30 cases. This is a dynamic number and keeps changing,” he said.