Tamil Nadu Health Officials Are More Concerned With Covid Deaths And ICU Occupancy Than With New Cases

According to health officials, on Pongal Day, Tamil Nadu recorded 23,989 new Covid-19 cases, which is 530 more than on the previous day. The slight rise may be due to people delaying testing over the holiday, but the increase in ICU occupancy and mortality is cause for alarm.

The majority of hotspots did not witness a significant surge in new cases. Chengalpet came in second with 2,854 new cases, whereas Chennai recorded 8,978 fresh cases. The other additional districts to register cases in four digits were Coimbatore with 1,732 and Tiruvallur with 1,478.

The state has seen a daily case surge from between 1,000 and nearly 3,000 cases in the last week. J Radhakrishnan, the secretary of state for health, said that they don't want the situation to be misinterpreted as an indicator of decline. It's possible that they are still at the top of our game.

The case fatality rate remains at 1.3 percent, while the number of people who die every day has climbed up. The weekly average of deaths was nine a week ago, on January 9, however, the weekly average was 18 on Saturday, when 11 people succumbed to the disease were recorded. In a week, the number of active cases has risen from 51,335 to 1,31,007, according to the CDC. Despite the fact that hospitalisation rates have decreased from 11% to 6%, ICU bed capacity has increased from 4% on January 9 to 7% on Saturday. The proportion of patients in intensive care units jumped from 429 on January 9 to 696 on Thursday. ICU admissions in Chennai have increased to 15% from 9% a week before.

Infectious diseases expert Dr Subramanaian Swaminathan said that the majority of people in the ICU had not received vaccines.

TS Selvavinayagam, director of public health said that they were asking people not to self-prescribe tests. They can perform three lakh RTPCR assays every day in GHs, that will be free of cost. As per the revised guideline issued on Saturday, he further added that symptomatic people receiving surgical or non-surgical invasive procedures, as well as pregnant women hospitalised for delivery, should not be examined until needed or symptoms appear.