Tamil Nadu on Saturday became the second State in the country to cross two lakh cases of COVID-19. As many as 6,988 fresh infections were reported, taking the State’s overall case count to 2,06,737.
Maharashtra has the highest case tally, with around 3.57 lakh infections (as of Friday). With 3,409 deaths, Tamil Nadu ranks third in terms of fatalities, after Maharashtra and the National Capital Territory of Delhi.
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In Tamil Nadu, the cases account for 0.27% of the State’s population*, i.e., roughly three out of every thousand persons have tested positive.
The first case in Tamil Nadu was reported on March 7. While it took 118 days for the State to cross the one-lakh mark on July 3 (1,02,721 cases), it took just 22 more days to add another 1.4 lakh cases.
Interestingly, Maharashtra, which took 95 days to cross the one-lakh mark on June 12, also took exactly 22 days to add another one lakh cases by July 4.
The progression of cases from one lakh to two lakh in Tamil Nadu also coincided with the burden of infections shifting geographically across the State. For instance, when the State crossed the one-lakh mark on July 3, the Chennai region, comprising Chennai, Tiruvallur, Kancheepuram and Chengalpattu districts, accounted for 75.4% of all the cases. On Saturday, when the State crossed two lakh cases, the Chennai region accounted for only 59.7% of the total cases, while the remaining 40.3% of infections came from other districts.
Moreover, if the 1,04,016 new cases added since the State crossed the one-lakh mark is taken into consideration, only 44.3% of them came from the Chennai region. The other districts accounted for the remaining 55.7% of the cases.
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Despite the high infection count, Tamil Nadu has managed to keep the number of active cases fairly under control, thanks to the high recovery rate reported in the State, aided by the Indian Council of Medical Research’s revised guidelines relaxing the conditions to be met for discharging patients.
When the State crossed one lakh cases, the number of active cases were 42,955 (41.8%). However, while the overall case count had grown by more than 100% since, the number of active cases had increased by only 21.7%, to 52,273, as of Saturday. As much as 73% of COVID-19 patients have recovered.
The State has also maintained a comparatively low case fatality rate (CFR) of 1.65%, as of Saturday. Compared to Tamil Nadu, many other larger States with a high number of cases like Maharashtra, Gujarat, Karnataka, West Bengal, Uttar Pradesh and the NCT of Delhi have a higher CFR.
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Tamil Nadu has significantly ramped up testing. The State has tested 2,200,433 persons so far — the highest in the country. Despite ramping up testing, the State’s test positivity rate has remained roughly around 10% throughout the last one month.
*The State’s population is taken as per the Unique Identification Authority of India’s projected population of 7.78 crore as of May 31, 2020.
