How Chennai grappled with COVID: 5 lakh tests and12k workers

Chennai: Covid-mauled Chennai managed to reach a milestone Saturday by crossing the five lakh mark in the conduct of RT-PCT tests, thus becoming the first city in India to have tested that many people.

A motorcycle rally was conducted to mark the occasion. It was flagged off by the commissioner of Chennai Corporation, G Prakash.

Chennai gradually scaled up testing since the outbreak of the pandemic in March, reaching 13,000 tests a day now. The death rate has thus been kept low, Prakash said.

The corporation put 12,000 field workers on the job to do door-to-door surveys to identify people with symptoms. Plus, 4500 workers were engaged in contact tracing. Such an effort helped isolate 8.5 lakh persons, of whom 5 lakh have since gone home safe.

The contact tracing job succeeded in isolating 40,000 persons, thus restricting the rate of infection. Some 18,000 fever camps were organized in the city and 60,000 people were treated, he said.

The corporation enlisted the services of 350 experienced doctors to undertake the task of testing symptomatic persons and admitting them to hospital or Covid centres or isolating them at home.

As per the WHO, if the doubling time of COVID incidence is more than 14 days, it means some good is happening. In that light, the doubling rate in Chennai was 47 days.

In places like Royapuram, Thiru Vi Ka Nagar and Tondiarpet where infections were very high at one point, the doubling rate now was 90 days, Prakash said.