As the world is far away from discovering a vaccine and remedy to cure the Coronavirus pandemic, the countries are relying on aggressive testing, effective treatment, and isolation as the antidotes to curb the spread and as far as Tamil Nadu is concerned, in the albeit of doing the highest number of COVID-19 tests in India currently, the medical experts say that the current numbers of testing aren't enough to flatten the curve in the state. 

The state has been testing 11,000 samples on an average per day for the past one week. However, according to health experts, the state must test at least 18,000 samples per day to identify the infections and carriers at the early stage. Of this 18,000 target, the state has to test at least 10,000 samples in Chennai alone while the rest 8,000 must be tested across the state. Chennai has become the active hotspot in the state with the sharpest rise of positive cases. 

Currently, Chennai accounts for 40% of tests reported in the state and the experts advised the government that the city must see 10,000 tests per day to contain further spread. The city's current graph has raised more concerns to the government in its fight against the pandemic and experts has prescribed aggressive testing is the crucial player and the state must ensure to test the influx from other regions as aggressive testing becomes imperative measure, which is on the front of the fight against the pandemic.

The more testing would add more cases to the state's tally and the experts say that the numbers would come down even as testing continues. On Tuesday, the experts' committee has warned the Tamil Nadu government that at least 20 lakh people in Chennai are staying at a high risk since they are residing in the red zones and at least five percent of these 20 lakh people would have been affected by the virus already. According to experts, more testing will be protecting vulnerable people from getting affected.

If testing decreases, the asymptomatic people, who would be the carriers of COVID-19, will be spreading the disease in their neighborhoods and the experts suggested the government that it has to test at least 100 people per lakh population in Chennai and the positive cases, all of their contacts, must be treated effectively and must be kept under quarantine. The state health department has claimed that it has been testing 539 people per lakh population across the state. 

However, the official data shows that the state has been reporting fluctuating numbers in COVID-19 testing. For instance, on Wednesday, the state had tested 11,231 samples while the number stood at 10,289 on Tuesday. The state has been testing 3,500 to 4000 samples in Chennai per day which is far behind the target of what the experts' committee had suggested. 

While meeting Chief Minister Edappadi Palaniswami on Tuesday, the expert committee has warned the government to carry out more and aggressive testing failing which Chennai would see 2 lakh cases by June end with at least 1,400 deaths. As of Wednesday, the state has tested 4,42,970 samples - the highest number of tests in the country and it must pace up the testing by avoiding a decline and fluctuation which would eventually curb the spread.

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