Thread by @scanman

There are many in the media and social media who are questioning #TamilNadu government's response to #Covid19India, especially with respect to the low numbers of testing for #coronavirus. There are unfavourable comparisons to other states who have performed more tests.

There is an opinion expressed by knowledgeable public health experts that since the percentage of positive cases identified by the states doing extensive community-level testing is not very big, there may be no big benefit in doing such extensive and expensive testing nationwide.

I work in a private sector multispeciality hospital. We are one of the hospitals that our district health authorities had designated in the city to be prepared with isolation ward for potential #COVID19 patients very early in the epidemic when our state had single-digit numbers.

We have been running limited inpatient and outpatient services with all hospital personnel working in weekly shifts since the nationwide lockdown was announced.

We had to change our regular mode of functioning. We had to treat every patient as a potential #COVID19 patient.

All patients who come to the hospital are first registered & screened in a newly redesigned ‘isolation/triage casualty’ which our people have quickly named the “fever casualty.” Any patient who has fever or symptoms suggestive of #COVID19 are to be retained in an isolation ward.

This fever casualty & isolation ward includes a small ICU, and is in a separate building away from the main hospital & OP buildings. Patients who've been screened & are deemed not suspicious for #COVID19 are sent to see doctors in the OP building or for admission in the hospital.

Over the past 3 weeks, we have seen/screened on average 70-80 patients per day in our "fever casualty." Our doctors identified a grand total of 3 patients of suspected #COVID19. Test samples were sent after obtaining due permissions from district authorities. All were negative.

Even at a conservative lower estimate, we have screened more than 1000 patients. In that, we suspected 3, all of whom were negative.

I guess the doctors in Salem government hospital have screened many tens of times the number of patients that we have seen in our hospital.

We have not had a great many #COVID19 positive cases in our district.

What follows is my personal opinion.

I am now tending to believe that extensive community-level testing is not needed in our part of #TamilNadu.