Fresh infections dropped under 1,200 on Sunday, as 1,195 more persons tested positive for COVID-19, taking the State’s tally closer to the eight lakh-mark.
Chennai continued to top the table with 340 new cases, followed by Coimbatore with 115. Tiruvallur reported 70 cases, while there were 66 each in Chengalpattu and Salem and 62 in Tiruppur. Except Perambalur, that recorded no new cases, the remaining districts recorded under 50 cases each. Four returnees from Bihar, Jharkhand, West Bengal and Karnataka tested positive for the infection in the State.
With this, the State’s tally touched 7,98,888. The number of persons under treatment stood at 10,115. Of these, 3,188 are in Chennai, 1,007 in Coimbatore, 533 in Salem and 521 in Tiruppur.
While 1,276 persons were discharged after treatment, 12 more persons succumbed to the infection, taking the total number of discharged persons to 7,76,878 and the State’s toll to 11,895.
Chennai reported eight deaths, while Chengalpattu, Tenkasi, Theni and Tiruppur saw one each.
Ten of the deceased had co-morbidities. This included a 45-year-old man from Chennai who had systemic hypertension and chronic kidney disease. He was admitted to a private hospital with complaints of fever and loss of appetite for seven days, cough for 14 days and difficulty in breathing for two days. He died on December 12 due to acute respiratory distress syndrome, multiple organ dysfunction syndrome and COVID-19 pneumonia.
A total of 69,568 samples were tested in the last 24 hours. Till date, 1,29,56,605 samples have been tested. Three more private laboratories — Deepaa Micro Lab, in Erode; Krishna College of Paramedical and Allied Health Science in Tiruchi, and Nanolab Diagnostic and Biomedical Research Centre in Karur — were approved for COVID-19 testing. With this, there are now a total of 67 laboratories in the government sector and 164 in the private sector.
