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COVID deaths cross 1,000-mark in city
Zones with heavy caseload like Royapuram, Teynampet, Tondiarpet and Thiru Vi Ka Nagar report more deaths
By
migrator
migrator
Chennai
With 37 more patients dying due to coronavirus infection in the city on Saturday, the total death toll of COVID-19 has gone past 1,000 mark in Chennai. The toll now is 1,033, which doubled in just 15 days, to take mortality rate to 1.55 per cent.
According to the Corporation, more deaths were reported from Royapuram, Teynampet, Tondiarpet and Thiru Vi Ka Nagar zones. As on Friday, when the city’s death toll was at 996; Teynampet and Royapuram zones accounted for nearly one-third of the deaths with 151 and 150 deaths respectively.
Of the 37 deaths recorded in the city on Saturday, 13 patients did not have any comorbidities and 24 persons had underlying health conditions that complicated their case.
It may be noted the city had reached 500 deaths on June 19, from where it took just 15 days to record the next 500. The estimate prepared by the Tamil Nadu Dr MGR Medical University had projected that the capital city may record up to 1,600 deaths by mid-July at the current rate of growth.
Meanwhile, of the more than 10,000 samples tested on Saturday, 1,842 persons were confirmed positive. This has increased the total tally of active patients in the city to 24,195. More than 42,000 patients have recovered from the disease.
The Chennai Corporation has instructed its field officials to report details of persons who have completed 10-day home isolation and patients discharged from hospital as well as from COVID care centres, so that they could be added to the discharged persons’ list.
“There are more than 3,500 cases to be discharged that are reported on or before June 24,” an official said.
On a positive note, around 62 per cent of the infected persons have recovered from the disease. Among the zones, Tondiarpet and Royapuram have recorded more than 70 per cent recovery rate.
Over 10K persons tested every day: Corpn
Following demands from various quarters, the Greater Chennai Corporation has finally started releasing the number of tests conducted in the city every day.
The details were made available on the Corporation’s official Twitter handle @chennaicorp. According to the data released on Saturday, the civic body has tested 10,142 persons on Friday. Positivity rate was at 20.5 per cent on Friday as 2,082 persons were tested positive.
“Since the complete lockdown was implemented in the city, we have been increasing the number of samples tested every day. We are now constantly testing more than 10,000 people for the last 10 days. Earlier, we were testing less than 6,000,” said a Corporation official.
Corporation Commissioner G Prakash said that the city has recorded 35,000 tests per million population, claiming that this was the highest in the country.
While lauding the authorities for increasing the number of tests, Dr Prabhdeep Kaur, Deputy Director of National Institute of Epidemiology (ICMR) and a member of the State medical experts’ panel, urged the residents to isolate themselves immediately and get tested if they have symptoms, including loss of smell or taste. Meanwhile, the civic body added that 436 patients aged above 80 years have recovered from COVID-19. Of the total 64,689 cases reported till Friday, around 1,150 patients are over 80 years of age.
The civic body has increased the number of containment zones in the city. As on Saturday, the city has 158 containment zones, of which 50 are in the Tondiarpet zone alone.
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