Fresh cases of COVID-19 fell further in Tamil Nadu on Monday, with 3,536 persons testing positive for the infection. Chennai reported 885 fresh cases, after having recorded over 1,000 infections a day for the past few weeks.
The new cases pushed the State’s tally to 6,90,936. Another 4,515 persons were discharged after treatment, taking the number of persons discharged so far to 6,42,152. With 49 more deaths, the State’s toll climbed to 10,691. A total of 38,093 persons are undergoing treatment.
Chennai’s daily infection count fell below 1,000. The fresh cases had been in the range of 1,000 to 1,400 since September 24. The city accounts for a total of 1,90,949 cases, of which 12,285 are active cases. A total of 1,236 persons were discharged and 16 persons died in the city on Monday.
With 290 fresh cases, Coimbatore’s tally climbed to 40,108. Chengalpattu recorded 241 cases and Salem 192. There were 172 cases in Tiruvallur and 140 in Tiruppur. Thirty-one other districts had less than 100 cases — Erode (90), Kancheepuram (92), Namakkal (98), Vellore (92) and Thanjavur (83).
Of the 49 fatalities, 25 occurred at private hospitals. Among them, five persons were in their 40s. Two nonagenarians also succumbed to the infection. A 97-year-old man from Cuddalore with diabetes and dementia was admitted to a private hospital in Chennai on October 10 with complaints of fever for six days, cough for three days, breathing difficulty and altered sensorium for a day. He died on October 19 due to COVID-19 pneumonia.
A 98-year-old woman from Tiruvallur was admitted to the Government COVID-19 Hospital, Guindy, on October 13. She died on October 17 due to COVID-19 pneumonia, respiratory failure, multi-organ dysfunction syndrome and encephalopathy. So far, 25,073 children aged up to 12 and 86,027 persons aged above 60 have tested positive for the infection.
As many as 85,130 samples were tested in the last 24 hours. The total number of samples tested stands at 90,31,696.