Thirty five districts in Tamil Nadu reported new cases of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) on Friday with the State’s overall tally going past the 54,000-mark. The State recorded 2,115 COVID-19 cases and 41 deaths, while 1,630 persons were discharged taking the total number of persons discharged past 30,000.

The State now has a total of 54,449* cases of COVID-19 - 23,509 active cases, 30,271 discharged and 666 deaths. While Chennai accounted for the major chunk of fresh cases with 1,322, Vellore district saw a rise in the number of cases at 103 followed by 95 cases in Chengalpattu and 85 in Tiruvallur. Kancheepuram, with 39 new cases, became the fourth district in the State to have more than 1,000-plus cases.

Chennai’s tally of cases surged to 38,327 of which 21,098 persons were discharged. The city accounts for 529 deaths.

The 41 fatalities - 26 in government and 15 in private hospitals - had occurred in the last four days in the State. Of them, nine were aged 38 to 50 years. One of them - a 40-year-old man from Hosur - was brought dead to the Government Hospital in Hosur on June 16. He was referred from ESI Hospital, Hosur and had difficulty in breathing for two hours. His swab was lifted and returned positive for COVID-19, and death was due to acute respiratory distress syndrome, according to the bulletin issued by the Health Department.

A 38-year-old woman with hypothyroidism was admitted to Rajiv Gandhi Government General Hospital. She was involved in a road traffic accident. Her sample returned positive for COVID-19. She died on June 18 including due to cardiopulmonary arrest, brain dysfunction, head injury, moderate pneumothorax and COVID-19 pneumonia.

A 47-year-old man and 48-year-old woman with no co-morbidites died in private hospitals in Chennai.

CASES IN MORE DISTRICTS: For the past few days, there has been an increase in cases in many districts. On Friday, only Namakkal and Perambalur did not report new infections. Madurai reported 58 cases, while Tiruvannamalai had 37 cases. There were 31 cases in Villupuram, 29 cases in Coimbatore, 26 in Thoothukudi, 22 in Dindigul and 21 in Ramanathapuram. Ten districts - Krishnagiri, Salem, Sivagangai, Tenkasi, Thanjavur, Theni, Tiruvarur, Tirunelveli, Tiruchi and Virudhunagar - had 10 to 20 cases each. The remaining districts had cases in single digits.

Forty persons, who had returned from abroad and other States, tested positive for the infection. This included 15 persons from Delhi and 13 from Maharashtra.

SAMPLES AND TESTING: The number of samples tested has been steadily rising in the last few days. A total of 27,537 samples were tested during the last 24-hour period, taking the total number of samples tested till now to 8,27,980. A total of 7,89,408 individuals have been tested so far.

The Health department released details on the number of tests conducted in districts. As per entries made by approved RT-PCR testing laboratories in the ICMR portal, 7,11,678 samples were tested in the State, with the entry of remaining records on the ICMR web portal in process.

The maximum number of samples were tested in Chennai (1,65,609). The number of samples tested in Chengalpattu and Tiruvallur districts that account for the highest number of cases next to Chennai remained relatively less than some of the other districts. A total of 19,355 samples were tested in Chengalpattu, while 13,645 samples were tested in Tiruvallur.

Next to Chennai, Coimbatore had the second highest number of samples tested at 32,094 followed by Salem with 30,125 samples. In the tests per million population, Chennai topped with 22,954.

Two more private labs - PrimeGen Healthcare Laboratories Private Limited, Nanganallur and Suriyaa Diagnostics - were approved for COVID-19 testing. With this, there are a total of 45 testing facilities in the government and 38 in the private sector.

(*This is inclusive of two deaths cross-notified to other States and one patient who died after testing negative for the infection)