Chennai: Over 7,500 beds available at corpn-run Covid care units

CHENNAI: In just 9 days, Greater Chennai Corporation’s bed vacancy shot up to 88% in covid care centres and the number of home isolation patients dipped from 40,613 on May 30 to 16,709 on June 8. Patients in covid care centres also reduced from 6,609 on May 30 to 1,119 on June 8.
The reduced pressure on the health infrastructure has renewed focus on covid protocol enforcement as lockdown restrictions have eased.The test positivity rate has been below 10% in the past two weeks.

The corporation, with 8,767 ready-to-occupy beds in 32 Covid care centres, has stopped adding beds and commissioner Gagandeep Singh Bedi says all measures including daily surveillance will continue.
The reduction in home isolation cases has given a breather and three teams including revenue officials and police officers will enforce Covid protocols in every zone.
As on June 8, 11,105 individuals were penalized for not wearing masks and crowding in public spaces among other violations and Rs 2.52 crore in fines collected from shops and offices.
“Only 15 such teams one per zone were functional. Now we are adding another 30,” said an official. This will ensure transmission is in check.
The corporation plans to use more doctors for doorstep triaging, fever camps, vaccination and testing instead of tele counselling centres and video consultations.
“Telecounselling centres will continue for patients in home quarantine. We are now asking doctors in tele-counselling centres to go for door-step triaging as well as the numbers have come down drastically. This will reduce future transmission,” said an official. There are about 250 volunteers, all final year MBBS students, and 250 doctors in the tele-counselling centres.
The officials ruled out another steep rise in cases next week stating that even when similar restrictions were in place, they didn’t see much rise in cases post May13.
However, the civic body is preparing for the third wave, which many fear is likely in September.
“There is no official statement on it but meetings are being held every day to train officials to manage a high load of cases in case they rise in September,” said an official.
Epidemiologists say that there will definitely be challenges after the lockdown restrictions are lifted.
“Detecting the symptomatic cases and those susceptible to infection should be the focus. And based on vaccine availability, vaccination priority should be given to those above 45 years as they continue to be vulnerable post infection.”