Puducherry witnessed the deaths of nine more people during the last 24 hours, raising the toll to 737, the health department said on Saturday. The nine deceased included seven men and two women and were in the age group ranging between 45 years and 93 years.
The Union Territory registered 899 new cases that were identified at the end of examination of 6,030 samples projecting a test positivity rate of nearly 15 percent, Director of Department of Health and Family Welfare services S Mohan Kumar said. Puducherry region accounted for 702 new cases out of the total 899 cases while Karaikal had 109, Yanam 50 and Mahe 38 cases.
The Director said the fatality and recovery rates were 1.41 percent and 85.64 percent respectively. As many as 7.58 lakh samples have been tested so far and of them 6.84 lakh turned out to be negative.
As many as 453 patients were discharged after recovery during the last twenty-four hours from hospitals. Meanwhile, 31,140 health care workers and 18,315 front line workers have been vaccinated so far.
As many as 1,13,485 people belonging either to the category of those above 60 years, those above 45 years having comorbidity or those getting second jabs have been covered so far under vaccination programme. The weekend lockdown lasting 55 hours was brought into force at 10 pm on Firday and would end at 5 am on Monday.
The government has, however, eased the curbs to enable availability of essential services. In a video message to the people, Lt Governor Tamilisai Soundararajan said the weekend lockdown was meant to protect the people against the pandemic and to prevent the spread of the scourge.
She said the government had initiated all efforts to keep the pandemic at bay. While remaining indoors, people should use masks and maintain distancing while dining, the Lt Governor added.
She sought cooperation of the people as joint efforts would bring in ideal results and keep Puducherry out of bounds for the pandemic.
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