Five more persons who had returned from the United Kingdom tested positive for COVID-19 in Tamil Nadu on Saturday, taking the total number of such cases to 10.
The bulletin released by the Health Department said the five persons had travelled from the U.K. between November 25 and December 21. The State has stepped up vigil after a mutant strain of the novel coronavirus was reported in the U.K.
All the persons who returned from the U.K. since December 21 were tested, and one of them was found positive. The State has so far traced and tested 1,362 of the nearly 2,300 persons who had travelled from the country in the previous month. Of them, nine have tested positive. The results in respect of another 318 were awaited, the bulletin said.
Of the 81 contacts of these 10 positive cases, four have tested positive, while the results in respect of another 44 are awaited.
Tamil Nadu recorded 1,019 cases on Saturday, taking the total number to 8,13,161. Eleven persons died, taking the toll to 12,059.
As many as 1,098 patients recovered, taking the total number of recovered patients to 7,92,063, which is 97.4% of all the reported cases.
Of the new cases, Chennai topped the list with 295. Coimbatore, Chengalpattu, Salem, and Tiruvallur reported 93, 78, 59 and 55 cases respectively.
Fourteen districts reported cases in single digits. Six of the 11 deaths occurred at government hospitals and the remaining at private hospitals.
Except one, the others had co-morbidities. Chennai reported five deaths, Chengalpattu three, Coimbatore two and Salem one.
The youngest among the deceased was a 45-year-old man from Chengalpattu, who was admitted to the Rajiv Gandhi Government General Hospital in Chennai on Thursday after testing positive 10 days ago. He did not have any co-morbidity and died on the same day he was hospitalised.
Besides three persons who were in their 40s, the other eight were aged above 60. The oldest was an 82-year-old man from Chennai with diabetes, hypertension and chronic kidney disease. He was admitted to a private hospital on Thursday after complaining of fever and difficulty in breathing for three days. He died the next day.
The bulletin said 64,075 persons were tested in the last 24 hours, with the test positivity rate standing at 1.59%.