After hovering around 10 per cent little more than a month ago, the test positivity rate in Tamil Nadu has come down to about 5 per cent now, which signified adequate testing and controlling the rate of infection. Continuing the declining trend in growth, the State recorded 4,410 new COVID-19 cases on Thursday. The number of deaths has also reduced, with 49 added on Thursday.
Chennai:
According to public health experts, the doubling time COVID cases in the State has increased, which means the rate of infection has declined. This would come as a welcome relief for the authorities, especially the Health Department officials, who have been battling to control the pandemic for months.
With Thursday’s 4,410 cases, the total number of cases reported in Tamil Nadu so far has gone up to 6,74,802. This includes 1,148 cases in Chennai, 395 in Salem and 365 in Coimbatore. Chengalpattu recorded 255 cases while Tiruvallur had 192 cases.
The bulletin from the Health Department said 49 more deaths were notified, including 18 in Chennai, followed by 5 in neighbouring Tiruvallur and 3 in Coimbatore. The deceased included two men aged 33 and 90, besides a 37-year-old woman, the bulletin said, adding that 47 of them had co-morbidities. With these, the toll has gone up to 10,472.
Meanwhile, recoveries continued to outnumber fresh cases and with 5,055 patients getting discharged from various hospitals in the State, 6,22,458 people have been treated and cured so far. Barring two days, the state has been posting more recoveries than fresh cases since Oct 4.
The active cases have now dipped to 41,872. This 39,856 as on July 1 but surged thereafter, crossing the 46,000 mark during the first week of July. After dropping to 43,747 on October 12, the number of active cases decreased further to 43,239 the next day and on Wednesday it slid to 42,566.
As many as 90,752 samples were tested, taking the total number of samples tested to 86,74,793 so far been.
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