Covid tally zooms past 18,000-mark

Coimbatore: The Covid-19 tally in the district crossed the 18,000-mark on Saturday, when it recorded 545 fresh cases. The count now stands at 18,410, of which 4,729 are active cases.
Among the new cases is 22-year-old staffer with the resident medical officer’s office in the Coimbatore Medical College and Hospital (CMCH). While Podanur logged 47 new cases, neighbouring Chettipalayam reported nine cases but they were spread across the area. Rathinapuri and Veerakeralam saw 12 and 13 cases, respectively.
At least 366 patients were discharged from the facilities they were undergoing treatment in the day. With this, 13,358 patients have recovered from Covid-19 in the district.
The toll, meanwhile, rose to 323 with the state including one more death that occurred in the district in its bulletin.
In a bid to bring down the number of new cases and reduce the positivity rate, the district had tested 7,125 people, the highest number so far, for Covid-19 on Friday. The positivity rate in the city had climbed to nearly 13%, prompting the health department to slowly increase the number of samples to around 5,800 a day. Of the 7,125 samples, 4,746 were lifted from the city corporation and municipal areas and the remaining from villages.
As on Saturday, 938 of the 4,729 active cases were undergoing treatment in four main hospitals - 388 in the ESI Hospital, 221 in CMCH, 65 in Pollachi district headquarters hospital and 264 in the PSG Hospitals.
Another 64 patients are getting treatment in the Hindusthan Hospital, 38 in Madukkarai government hospital, 828 in 21 private hospitals and 1,398 in Covid care centres. The remaining 486 are in home quarantine.
Officials are racing against time to set up more Covid care centres. The centres at Suguna Kalyana Mandapam (330 beds), Karunya College in Madhampalayam (600 beds) a wedding hall in Pollachi (280 beds), another wedding hall in Mettupalayam (100 beds) and Sri Ramakrishna’s hall (250) are already ready.
Dr G Ramesh Kumar, deputy director of public health, said, “We are focusing more on tracing contacts of positive cases and testing them, instead of trying to identify the source of infection, to contain the spread.”