CHENNAI: The city had more cases, more deaths during the second wave of the viral infection that began on April 11 compared to the first wave in May 2020.
While several factors including a highly infectious strain of the virus played a crucial rule in expediting transmission, epidemiologists say efforts taken by Greater Chennai Corporation dragged the curve down quicker this year.
On June 30, 2020, with 2,392 new cases, Chennai reported the highest number of cases for the first wave.
It took 30 days for the city to reach the peak from May 31 (prepeak period) when it was reporting around 800 cases.
In the second wave, on May 12, Chennai reported 7,564 cases – it’s peak during the second wave – 30 days after 2,105 cases on April 12, 2021.
“In 2020, it took 16 weeks for the city to report a pre-peak number of 800 cases a day.
In 2021, Chennai did that in a fortnight,” said P Ganeshkumar, epidemiologist, National Institute of Epidemiology.
How did the erstwhile hotspot manage this? Timely lockdown played a crucial role.
But public health experts say five key decisions by GCC helped the city.
First, besides ramping up testing, the state asked scan centres to share CT reports of patients suspected for Covid-19.
Since Covid-19 is a notifiable disease, many patients evaded RTPCR tests and opted for CT scans.
“This was one of the first leaks we plugged,” said joint commissioner V Alby John.
Last year, while there were similar measures, the data from private labs was shared to members of the public directly.
This year, it was the civic body that delivered the test results along with the medical kits.
Second, to stop those tested positive from spreading the infection, the civic agency initiated a slew of measures.
It arranged for tele consultations and car ambulances that would pick them up from doorsteps to screening centres and hospitals.
Those advised home isolation were given medical kits and were monitored by a special team, including medicos appointed by GCC.
“Early isolation and therapy reduced the number of cases and deaths,” said Dr Ganeshkumar.
The city also tested more than 30,000 people per day in May 2021.
“With high and targeted testing, we were able to identify more cases.
Test positivity rate also dropped below 10% eventually in a shorter period of time.
Last year, it took about a month in comparison to less than 20 days this year due to higher number of tests,” he said.
Despite all these measures, as active cases in the city crossed 49,000 the pressure on the healthcare system was overwhelming.
“The progression of the disease was rapid and unpredictable.
And more women and younger people suffered badly, recalls infectious diseases expert Dr S Subramanian.
Oxygen and drugs such as remdesivir were scarce.
The city corporation worked with the state health department to ensure timely supply of life saving oxygen gas and drugs at different hospitals.
“After several brainstorming sessions, we tightened the existing system and filled some gaps.
We took vaccines at people’s doorsteps to ensure vulnerable people are quickly covered,” says GCC commissioner Gangandeep Singh Bedi.
“Almost all the measures worked.
We know we still have a long way to go to stop the virus,” he said.