CHENNAI:
Active cases in Tamil Nadu touched 20,204 on Saturday with 3,446 new cases recorded. The case tally touched 8.96 lakh and 14 deaths took the cummulative toll to 12,764.
The last time the state had more than 20,000 active cases was on November 1, when there were 20,994 people under treatment.
While active cases dropped below 4,000 to 3,997 on March 7, newer clusters led to increase in numbers.
By March 15, there were 5,149 active cases and in the next ten days it doubled to 10,487.
Six days later, on March 31 there were 15,847 patients under treatment for Covid-19.
The doubling time for cases, meanwhile, dropped to 220 days from1,143 days on March 7.
On Saturday, when Chennai reported 1,290 new cases and eight deaths, Chengalpet (285).
Tiruvallur (201) and Kancheepuram (141), took total new cases in the region to1,917.
Almost all districts in the region reported deaths. While Chengalpet reported two deaths, Tiruvallur and Kancheepuram reported one each.
After Chennai, the highest number of cases were reported from Coimbatore (292) followed by Thanjavur (138) and Trichy (142). Besides Chennai region, Madurai and Thanjavur reported one death each.
Chief secretary Rajeev Ranjan said the impact of the virus was being closely monitored and restrictions would be intensified as per the requirement. The state, he said, will do aggressive testing' and contact tracing. Until April 2 there were 846 containment zones in the state, he said.
Health secretary J Radhakrishnan said they have increased the number of isolation beds, stocked up on essential and life-saving drugs, oxygen capacity, ventilators and PPEs. On Saturday, the state received 2.14 lakh doses of Covaxin and 12.97 lakh doses of Covishield from the Centre.
On Saturday, 65,783 people including 22,100 senior citizens and 30,588 people between 45-59 years took the vaccine.
Over the last one week, the vaccination numbers have been steadily coming down.
On March 29,1.19 lakh people took the vaccine, the following day it dropped to 78,603. On Friday, 60,726 people took the vaccine.