Though Tamil Nadu refrained from testing aggressively in the initial stages of the COVID-19 outbreak , with only a few hundred persons being tested every day until mid-April, the State has now considerably ramped up testing.
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In the last one week, over 10,000 persons have been tested every day, on an average. Tamil Nadu, which is among the top seven States that account for more than 80% of the cases in the country, is testing at a significantly higher rate than other States. Overall, it has tested almost the same number of persons as Maharashtra, which held the top position for testing until recently, though the latter’s population is around 35% higher than Tamil Nadu’s.
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The overall testing to positive rate remains around 3% in Tamil Nadu. For the past one week, it has exceeded 4%, indicating that testing is being carried out in a more targeted manner due to the emergence of the Koyambedu market cluster. Around 2,000 cases are estimated to be linked to this cluster, at this stage.
A similar trend was observed when more persons from among the attendees of the Tablighi Jamaat conference and their contacts were testing positive. The rate shot up drastically to over 25% during that time. It may be noted that the overall number of tests performed by the State was considerably low then. For instance, as per the data provided on April 1, 2020, while 372 persons were tested that day, roughly every third person tested positive (110 cases).
While Tamil Nadu is testing at a higher rate now, it is unclear how the testing is being distributed across the State, as a majority of the tests are believed to be carried out in Chennai. Unlike Gujarat, Tamil Nadu has not been providing district-level test data as part of its regular bulletins.
