CHENNAI: Fresh cases across the state dropped to 1,702 on Thursday, when cases in all districts fell below 200 and active cases dropped below the 20,000 mark to 19,864 after nearly 140 days.
The state added 29 deaths to its registry, pushing the cumulative death toll to 34.639 and case tally to 25.95lakh.
On April 2, Tamil Nadu had 18,606 people under treatment for the viral infection, when the state reported 3,290 new cases. Since then, active cases rose rapidly to more than 3.13 lakh on May 27. With fall in fresh cases, active cases began to drop and by June 8 cases dropped to 2.18 lakh. It dropped below 1 lakh on June 18, when there were 89,009 people under treatment and by July 15, it dropped to 29,230.
Although there was a decline in overall cases, 10 districts showed a marginal increase between 1 and 4 cases, while 22 other districts showed a marginal drop of up to 7 cases. Coimbatore (198) which reported the highest number of cases saw the sharpest drop of 12 cases from 210 cases it reported on Wednesday. Chennai reported 193 cases compared to 198 on Wednesday.
The sharpest increase in cases was reported from Tiruvannamalai, where cases increased from 33 to 37 during the same time period. While 16 districts reported fewer than 25 cases, five districts had less than10 cases. The least number of cases were reported by Ramanathapuram (3) followed by Virudhunagar (4).
“Different studies have shown us that the delta variant is dominant in the second wave. While vaccinations can reduce hospitalisations and deaths, we cannot stop transmission without masks or social distancing norms. Even those vaccinated can get infected if they drop the guard,” said director of public health Dr TS Selvavinayagam.
Of the 29 deaths, Coimbatore reported 5 followed by four in Chennai and three each in Tiruppur, Trichy and Tirurvarur. While Tirupathur reported two deaths, nine other districts reported one death each.
