District logs 3,197 fresh Covid cases, highest till date

Coimbatore: In a first, the daily caseload surpassed the 3,000-mark in the district on Friday, when 3,197 of the 11,485 samples were tested positive for the virus, pushing the number of active cases to 18,290, the highest so far. The test positivity rate stood at 27.83%.
The day also saw the recovery rate dropping to 82.4%, even as 1,171 patients were discharged from various treatment centres. As per the official data, 90,106 of the 1,09,233 people who had tested positive till date have recovered from the virus attack in the district so far.
The Covid-19 toll surged to 837, with the health bulletin listing another 13 fatalities that occurred in the district. Among the deceased were a 41-year-old man without any comorbidities who died two weeks after testing positive for the virus, a 44-year-old man, also without comorbidities, who died two days after hospitalization, and a 50-year-old hypertensive man who died of pneumonia 11 days after hospitalization.
The number of hospitals being allowed to treat Covid-19 in the district has increased to 64 from 41. As a result, 65 beds with oxygen facility and 11 beds with ventilator facility were available in the district on paper. However, none of the hospitals with vacant beds had enough oxygen to admit the patients.
Meanwhile, a video of dead bodies of Covid victims that were piled up in the Coimbatore Medical College and Hospital (CMCH) went viral on social media. Shot by a journalist, the video showed 20 dead bodies packed in black body bags lying on the floor at a room entrance. People who saw the room said there were more than 30 bodies.
The video not only created a furore but also raised doubts whether the authorities were supressing the number of Covid-19 deaths in the district. The highest single-day toll that was recorded in the bulletin so far was 19. “If the number of deaths is so high in CMCH alone, we can’t imagine how many would have died in the ESI Hospital, the Pollachi government hospital and in private hospitals,” commented R Raveendran, an IT professional, on social media.
CMCH dean Dr A Nirmala later posted and circulated pictures of dead bodies neatly kept in a room. “This is how we store dead bodies in CMCH,” she clarified. Meanwhile, Chennai-based NGO All the Children and its philanthropists sponsored medical equipment worth Rs 10 lakh to the government hospital.