After 101 days, Tamil Nadu’s active case tally once again breached the 10,000-mark on Thursday. The state added 1,779 new infections, pushing up the active case count to 10,487. Nine of the 11 deaths reported on Thursday were from Chennai region.
TN last reported more than 10,000 active cases on December 14, 2020. Four out of every 10 people under treatment in the state were from Chennai, which had 4,082 active cases. Clusters continued to increase in the hotspot city, which reported 664 new cases and seven deaths. Between March 19 and Thursday, 17 people from Central Training Institute, Guindy Estate tested positive.
Following the spike in clusters, particularly from educational institutions, health secretary J Radhakrishnan instructed district collectors and the Chennai corporation commissioner to ensure non-emergency/mandatory training institutes are closed. “Fever screening camps will be strengthened and testing will be ramped up across the state,” he said. Those testing positive have to be isolated either in hospitals or at their homes, he said.
After Chennai, neighbouring Chengalpet (162) reported the highest number of new cases. While Tiruvallur reported 89 cases and one death, Kancheepuram reported 63 cases and one death. Together, the Chennai region had nearly 54% of the total cases reported in the state. Besides Chennai and Chengalpet, Coimbatore (153) and Thanjavur (108) districts had more than 100 new cases. Perambalur was the only district to report no new case.
On Thursday, 98,949 patients took the Covid-19 vaccine. With this, the recipient tally in the state increased to 25,39,397.