COVID-19 cases rising again; Health Minister allays fears

CHENNAI: There has been a significant surge in COVID-19 cases in the State recently. While there were only two active cases about a month ago, the active cases are nearing 40 now. As many as nine cases were reported in the State on Friday, taking the active cases to 36. Chennai has the highest number of 17 active cases.

The Total Positivity Rate (TPR) that stood at zero around a month ago in the State has reached 3 per cent, with Coimbatore recording the highest of 5.8 per cent and Chennai 4 per cent. Chennai and Coimbatore have reported most of the cases in the last month. A total of 36,10,845 cases have been recorded in Tamil Nadu until now.

The testing of samples has also been increased from about 100 last month to close to 258 on Friday. However, there have been deaths due to the pandemic virus last month. The death toll so far stands at 38,081. The officials from the State Health Department said genomic sequencing will be conducted if the cases continue to rise or any new variants are suspected.

While Kerala is seeing a surge in the cases and records about 90 per cent of the total cases reported in the country, the State health department said Tamil Nadu has not seen the cases of JN.1 yet. India recorded 312 new cases on Friday, with active cases up to 1,296. JN.1, a sublineage of the BA.2.86 Omicron variant has recorded a surge in the cases in Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia and these countries have intensified travel checks.

“There is no significant rise in the cases other than an occasional rise and dip. The vaccination available is effective against the prevalent variants and there is no need to panic. JN.1 is a sub-variant of Omicron. A surge in the cases is common during December and January,” said Dr P Sampath Kumar, joint director of the Directorate of Public Health and Preventive Medicine.

Health Minister Ma Subramanian on Friday said there is no need to panic over the rising numbers in Kerala. “331 testing laboratories are functioning in the State. In case of influenza-like illnesses, we will be conducting the RT-PCR test and the number of samples for tests is being increased. There were only eight positive cases on Thursday and most of the patients had cold and cough symptoms,” he said.