Covid: 20 districts report marginal increase in cases

Covid: 20 districts report marginal increase in cases

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

Chennai:20.09.2021

Fresh cases in Tamil Nadu continued to decline on Saturday, when the state added 1,653 new cases compared to 1,669 on Friday. Twenty of the 38 districts in the state including Chennai and Kallakurichi reported a marginal increase in cases. After reporting 22 deaths and 1,581 discharges, there were 16,893 people on the active list.

Chennai, which reported the sharpest increase in cases in the last 24 hours, recorded 204 new cases compared to 196. The city reported the highest number of cases in the state followed by Coimbatore, which reported 201 new cases – a drop from 205 cases reported on Friday. Chennai and Coimbatore were the only two districts to report more than 200 cases each. Erode (139) and Chengalpet (101) were the only two other districts to report cases in two digits. While cases in Erode had increased from 132 cases on Friday, Chengalpet saw a decline from 115.

The sharpest decline was seen in Thanjavur, where cases dropped from 110 on Friday to 91 on Saturday. While Villupuram reported 20 new cases, at least 15 other districts recorded less than 20 cases. Among these Perambalur(9), Ramanathapuram(7), Virudhunagar(7) and Tenkasi(5) reported cases in single digits.

Active cases were highest in Coimbatore (2201) and Chennai (1941) on Saturday and nearly 46% of the active cases were reported from five districts – Coimbatore, Chennai, Erode, Chengalpattu and Thanjavur. However, more than 85% of hospital beds in almost all districts were vacant.

Of the 22 deaths, there were five from Coimbatore, four from Thanjavur, two each from Salem, Cuddalore and Kancheepuram. While seven districts reported one death each, 26 other districts reported zero deaths.

Meanwhile, two lakh people took vaccines on Saturday taking the total dosage tally to 3.9crore at the government vaccination centres. The number of vaccinations in private hospitals since May 1 has touched 23.7lakh.

Pondy reports 128 cases, one death

Puducherry on Saturday recorded 128 fresh Covid-19 cases that were identified at the end of examination of 5,004 samples. The new cases were spread over Puducherry 88, Karaikal 32 and Mahe eight. The overall case load was 1,25,384. However, Yanam did not report any new case. One more person aged 75 years succumbed to the viral infection raising the cumulative fatalities to 1,829. Director of health and family welfare services G Sriramulu said 17.32 lakh samples were tested and out of them 14.69 lakh were found to be negative. In all, 8.97 lakh people including those who received the second jab have been vaccinated in the Union Territory. AGENCIES