Septuagenarian dies of covid in Puducherry, death toll rises to 1,979

PUDUCHERRY: A 73-year-old man died of COVID-19 in Puducherry and 84 new cases were reported in the last 24 hours, a senior health official said on Tuesday.

The patient hailing from neighbouring Nellithope was admitted to the government hospital on April 4 and died on April 13 due to COVID pneumonia pushing up the overall Coronavirus deaths to 1,979, Director of Health G Sriramulu said in a release today.

The active cases were 503. Of them, 12 were in hospitals (one in Government General hospital, three in Government Hospital for Chest diseases and eight in COVID care centres) and the remaining 491 patients were in home quarantine, he said.

The Union Territory tested 1,073 samples in the last 24 hours and 84 new cases were reported. Puducherry region alone accounted for 61 cases while Karaikal registered 18 followed by Yanam two and Mahe region three cases.

Sriramulu said that the Health Department had so far screened 25,00,633 samples and found 21,31,030 of them to be negative.

A total of 93 patients recovered during the last 24 hours and the overall recoveries were 1,74,529, he said. The test positivity rate was 7.83 per cent while the fatality and recovery rates were 1.12 per cent and 98.60 per cent, respectively.