The Union Territory witnessed its highest yet 24-hour spike, with 604 new cases recorded on Friday even as nine deaths took the toll to 199.
The overall tally stood at 13,024, active cases at 4,745 and patients discharged at 8,080, including 319 in the past 24 hours.
While eight deaths were recorded in Puducherry, Karaikal reported one.
The new cases were confirmed from testing 1,689 samples indicating a positivity rate of 35.7%.
Among the new cases, 475 were in the Puducherry region, 46 in Karaikal and 83 in Yanam. While 2,464 COVID-19 positive cases were in home isolation, 2,281 were admitted in hospitals.
The distribution of hospital patients is 2,078 in Puducherry, 71 in Karaikal, 119 in Yanam and 13 in Mahe. Of the 2,264 cases in home isolation, 2,216 are in Puducherry, 162 in Karaikal and 86 in Yanam.
Health Minister Malladi Krishna Rao said while several measures recommended by the ICMR-Jipmer expert committee had already been implemented, the other steps would be adopted immediately. “We hope to see a reduction in cases and control the situation in the next 15 to 20 days,” he said.
He attributed the delay in strengthening manpower as one of the reasons for the spike in cases. It took over three months for the file pertaining to recruiting temporary healthcare staff to reach the Lt. Governor, he said.
“Timely augmentation of manpower could have helped get a handle on the situation much sooner,” he said.
About 458 staff including doctors, nurses, technicians and ambulance drivers are being recruited on a temporary basis for a period of 90 days for the UT. He hoped that authorities, from the Lt. Governor to Chief Secretary and Health Secretary, would ensure that the recruits are on the ground as quickly as possible.