Tamilnadu in Fifth position of Coronavirus Cases in India
Recently tamilnadu has come under criticism for not testing enough amid the COVID-19 pandemic. However, it appears that the state has slowly been ramping up its testing. As of april 19, the state has tested 40,876 samples belonging to 35,741 persons, making it the highest among the southern states in total tests done. However, as far as tests per million is concerned, kerala is still ahead of tamilnadu, with 579.58 samples against 566.62 respectively. In just the last two days alone, tamilnadu has tested 11,203 samples from 10,767 individuals for COVID-19. That’s an average of over 5,600 samples being tested.
Compare this number to a week earlier when the state had cumulatively tested only 10,655 samples on april 12. In just a week, there has been a nearly four-fold increase in testing for COVID-19. TNM analysed data from march 9 and it shows that the state has slowly boosted its testing week on week by not only adding more testing laboratories - both government and private - but by also widening its testing criteria.
On march 9, the earliest bulletin that was available, tamil Nadu had tested 63 samples. At the time, only one person had tested positive for the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes the COVID-19 disease. Testing was also taking place across three centres - the king Institute of Preventive Medicine & Research in chennai, National Institute of Virology in pune, and Jawaharlal Institute of Postgraduate Medical education and Research (JIPMER) in Puducherry. By april 13, tamil Nadu had recorded 1,173 positive cases, and also reported 11 deaths. The state had tested 12,746 samples across 25 laboratories - 16 government and 9 private centres. The increase in labs reflected in its daily testing numbers - with 2,091 samples tested on a single day. The state was testing 176.68 people per million, just marginally lower than the national average of 179.67 people per million. Significantly, its positivity rate has also reduced with the increase in testing over the last few days. As of april 19, tamil Nadu had reported 1,477 cases and 15 deaths out of 40,876 samples. The state’s rate of positive samples dropped to 3.61%. This was also lower than the national average rate of positive samples, which was 4.48%.