Core city zones record 56% of active cases, slow recovery

Even though the number of new cases is lower than the number of discharges — barring Friday — the number of active cases in the city is nearing 50,000 with core city zones having 56 per cent active cases.

As per the Chennai Corporation data, the city had as many as 48,782 active cases as on Saturday morning. Of the total active cases, as many as 27,364 active cases are in seven core city zones, such as Tondiarpet, Royapuram, Thiru Vi Ka Nagar, Anna Nagar, Teynampet, Kodambakkam, and Adyar, which is 56 per cent.

Despite being the extended zone, Ambattur has the highest number of active cases with 5,120 cases. Other than Ambattur, none of the extended zones has more than 3,000 active cases.

“As the core city zones are densely populated, the rate of infection in those zones will be higher, naturally. However, the percentage of recoveries is lower in the core city zones than the extended zones,” an official said.

The official added that the number of active cases is higher in Ambattur as the extended zone in the western part of the city is an industrial hotspot with an industrial estate housing several manufacturing industries.

As per the data, Anna Nagar had 5,047 active cases while Adyar and Kodambakkam had 4,744 and 4,520 active cases. Teynampet, Valasaravakkam and Tondiarpet had 3,983, 3,651 and 3,284 active cases respectively.

Meanwhile, Manali is the only zone with less than 1,000 active cases, as the zone had only 926 active cases. Sholinganallur and Tiruvottiyur had 1,804 and 1,994 active cases.

Overall, the city reported more than 4.68 lakh COVID-19 cases since the outbreak. Of the total cases, more than 4.13 lakh persons had recovered, which is 88 per cent recovery rate. On the other hand, Chennai’s case fatality rate is at 1.33 per cent, with 6,214 persons having died as per the official numbers.