As Tamil Nadu has been reeling through the rapid spread of the COVID-19 cases, one of the primary measures put forth by the medical experts to curb the spread is to carry out aggressive testing and pace up its facilities, as in the absence of the vaccine and drug to treat the virus, testing has been recommended as the better way to identify the symptoms and carriers at the early stage to prevent the vulnerable population.

In the albeit of having the high number of COVID-19 tests in the country, the experts call the Tamil Nadu government to ramp up the testing in Chennai than what it has been doing currently. The suggestion has come when the state health department has claimed that it has been carrying out adequate tests in Chennai and the numbers have been getting increased. 

The sequel of the absence of the report on the testing in Chennai in the daily bulletin released by the health department has amounted to the lack of clarity. According to the department, it has tested 1,21,950 samples in Chennai till June 7 and when Health Minister Vijayabaskar addressed the reporters on June 15, he said that a total of 1,85,000 samples were tested in the city. 

However, according to health experts, the city must increase the testing by at least 30% of what it has been doing currently as this pace up would be the better way for the city to identify and trace the contacts and asymptomatic carriers at the early stage as the failure of the early detection would add more risk for the city, leading it to witness the rampant spread.

According to the reports, the government has been testing around 5,000 to 5,300 samples a day in Chennai and the numbers are better than Mumbai and Delhi. The experts said that the government must test at least test 10,000 samples in Chennai per day and it should largely concentrate on testing the vulnerable people and people with co-morbid conditions to subdue and curb the deaths of such populace.

The experts further say that the cases could have come down when the government relaxed the restrictions if it had carried out adequate testing in the first two weeks of May. It must be recalled that the medical experts' committee, which has been installed by the government to advise it on containing the virus spread, had last month called the government to carry out the minimum of 18,000 sample testing across the state daily of which 10,000 from Chennai and 8,000 across the state.

It also has predicted that the cases would peak in Chennai in July and said that at least 20 lakh people in Chennai are staying at a high risk since they are residing in the containment areas and the committee has instructed the government to test all people in the containment areas failing which the spread will get doubled than predicted. 

As of Wednesday, Tamil Nadu has tested 7,73,707 samples so far - the highest in India, and on Wednesday, it has tested 25,463 samples overall in the state. However, the health department hasn't divulged how much it has tested in Chennai. The city has contributed two-thirds of total affected cases in the state. 

Also read: COVID-19: For the first time, TN reports 2,000 cases in a day as the tally crossed 50,000!