The number of persons testing positive for COVID-19 a day breached the 9,000-mark in Tamil Nadu on Saturday. A total of 9,344 persons tested positive and 39 persons died.
The State has tested over one lakh samples in the last 24 hours, while the total number of persons discharged so far crossed nine lakh.
Chennai, along with Chengalpattu, Coimbatore, Tiruvallur and Tiruchi districts, accounted for a little over 50% of the fresh cases. With 2,884 new cases, Chennai’s overall tally rose to 2,80,184. Chengalpattu recorded 807 cases, followed by Coimbatore with 652 cases. Tiruvallur and Tiruchi recorded 389 and 323 cases respectively.
Six districts recorded 200-plus cases — Kancheepuram (248), Madurai (235), Salem (289), Thoothukudi (261), Tirunelveli (246) and Tiruppur (275). Thirty returnees were among those who tested positive.
The fresh cases took the State’s overall tally to 9,80,728.
22 deaths in Chennai
Chennai recorded 22 deaths, including that of a 27-year-old man with no co-morbidities. He died within four hours of admission to the Rajiv Gandhi Government General Hospital on April 14 owing to COVID-19 pneumonia, acute respiratory distress syndrome and respiratory failure.
Nine of the deceased did not have co-morbidities. A 36-year-old man from Madurai died at the Government Rajaji Hospital on April 15 owing to COVID-19 pneumonia and respiratory failure.
The 39 fatalities — 22 at private hospitals and 17 at government hospitals — took the toll to 13,071. With 5,263 persons discharged on Saturday, 9,02,022 persons have so far been discharged. A total of 65,635 persons were under treatment.
A total of 1,00,804 samples were tested in the last 24 hours. This took the total count to 2,10,77,500. On Saturday, 1,13,349 persons were vaccinated across the State. Of them, 59,203 were aged 45 to 59 and 39,889 were senior citizens. This took the overall coverage so far to 47,05,473 — 7,05,824 healthcare workers, 7,14,122 frontline workers, 16,77,251 persons aged 45 to 59 and 16,08,276 senior citizens.
