Covid tally in Tamil Nadu breaches 30-lakh mark

After hovering over 23,000 daily new Covid-19 cases over the last few days, Tamil Nadu on Wednesday recorded a sharp increase again as the number of new infections was 26,981. This pushed the caseload to 30,14,235, said the Health Department said.

As many as 35 people died of the virus and took the toll to 37,073, a bulletin said here.

The number of recoveries was 17,456 in the last 24 hours aggregating to 28,06,501 leaving 1,70,661 active infections.

The State reported 23,888 new cases on Tuesday (January 18), while on Monday (January 17) it was 23,443. It reported 23,975 on Sunday (January 16) and 23,989 on Saturday (January 15), 23,459 on January 14 (Friday).

Chennai accounted for the most of the new infections with 8,007 followed by Coimbatore 3,082, Chengalpattu 2,194, Kanyakumari 1,008 while the remaining was spread across other districts.

Chennai witnessed a decline in new cases as compared to other districts after reporting 8,305 new infections on Tuesday (January18).

Those who tested positive today included 32 returnees from domestic and overseas locations.

A total of 1,50,635 samples were tested in the last 24 hours and they took the cumulative number of specimens examined to 5,99,80,920.

Meanwhile, Minister for Medical and Family Welfare Ma Subramanian appealed to the people not to panic over the increase in new cases as the surge may be due to people visiting their hometowns to celebrate Pongal festival last week.

"Of the 1.21 lakh villages in Tamil Nadu, the virus was prevalent in more than 28,000 villages. In urban areas, of the total 1.27 lakh streets, contagion is spread to 28,000 streets," he told reporters.

To a query, he said of the total 1.92 lakh beds available to treat Covid-19 patients, over 9,000 beds were occupied by patients. "Nearly 94 per cent of the Covid-19 affected patients are under home isolation," he said.