Coimbatore surpassed Chennai in total single-day cases for the past three days, making it the newest Covid-19 hot spot in Tamil Nadu. The industrially significant region recorded 3,937 cases on Friday and 4,734 cases on Thursday while Chennai reported 2,762 cases and 2,779 cases respectively.
The total count in the state on Friday was 31,079 new Covid-19 cases and 486 deaths. In view of the situation, the state extended the lockdown restrictions till June 7.
“What is happening in Coimbatore is not unexpected,” said K Kolandaswamy, former director of Public Health (DPH) and Preventive Medicine. “It is similar to what happened in Chennai and it is bound to happen in places where there are good and abundant healthcare facilities. Coimbatore services patients from five districts including Kerala. All these Covid patients are coming with attendees and now the hospitals have become hotspots. If you observe closely, the numbers are spiking in areas with healthcare facilities .
Kolandaswamy said cases were increasing in districts that had a high number of healthcare facilities, high population density and a number of closed and contained spaces.
Coimbatore had 38,336 active cases on Friday, trailing Chennai which had 41,498 active cases. However, as per the state media bulletin, Coimbatore has only 58 oxygen beds, 616 non-oxygen beds and no intensive care unit (ICU) beds vacant. Chennai, on the other hand, is the district with the most beds available. The stat capital has 2,172 oxygen beds, 1,904 non-oxygen beds and 163 ICU beds vacant.
However, this does not take away from the struggle that people are facing even in Chennai to get a bed as there are a number of hoops they have to jump through. “We need to rapidly increase the number of oxygen beds and ambulances,” said Kolandaswamy.
