A slight decline in the cases was recorded on Saturday after 1,66,639 more samples were tested in the past 24 hours. While the positivity rate in the State is currently at 21.5 per cent, the daily positivity rate in Chennai stands below 20 per cent.

While Chennai continued to report a decline in the daily cases with 5,559 fresh cases getting recorded, other districts also saw a small dip in the cases. Coimbatore reported 3,165 new cases, Chengalpattu 1,954 cases, Erode 1,758, Kanniyakumari 1,621 and Tiruvallur 1,511 cases.

The death toll in State also crossed the 20K mark with 448 more deaths taking the total toll to 20,046. Of the deceased, 125 did not have any comorbid conditions.

As many as 25,776 more people were discharged from several hospitals across the State, taking the total recoveries to 15,02,537, with 2,84,278 active cases in Tamil Nadu currently.

Of the 9,737 total ICU beds in the State, only about 244 beds were available on Saturday, with many districts running out of ICU beds.