One more person who returned from the United Kingdom and four more contacts of returnees have tested positive for COVID-19 in the last 24 hours. With this, 20 returnees from the U.K. and 20 of their contacts have tested positive for the infection, health officials said.
The State government has thus far traced and tested 1,895 of the 2,300 passengers who had travelled here from the U.K. between November 25 and the forenoon of December 23.
As many as 1,708 persons have tested negative, and the results in respect of 167 persons are awaited.
Health officials said they were tracing the rest of the passengers. All the U.K. returnees and their contacts who have tested positive are in separate isolation wards, officials said.
With 945 more persons testing positive since Tuesday, including a passenger each from West Bengal, Rajasthan and Telangana, the total number of active cases on Wednesday was 8, 615. So far, 8,17,077 persons have tested positive.
As many as 1,060 persons were discharged after treatment. This took the total number of those discharged to 7,96,353. The State reported 17 deaths, taking the toll to 12,109.
Chennai continued to record a higher number of cases, with 275 testing positive. The district also recorded seven deaths and the discharge of 320 persons. As many as 2,678 persons are under treatment or in home quarantine.
Coimbatore recorded 91 fresh infections and four deaths. Chengalpattu recorded 48 cases, Erode, Kancheepuram, Namakkal, Tiruvallur and Tiruppur districts recorded fewer than 40 cases each. Ariyalur, Perambalur and Kallakurichi each recorded just one case.
Of the 17 deaths, three died of the infection while 14 had pre-existing conditions which led to death, according to the daily bulletin of the Directorate of Public Health and Preventive Medicine. While eight deaths occurred at private hospitals, nine persons died at government hospitals.
The Health Department has permitted one more private laboratory in Tiruchi to test for COVID-19. The State now has 236 testing facilities, including 67 in the government sector and 169 in the private sector.
