Fewer fresh Covid-19 cases, but toll remains high in Tamil Nadu

CHENNAI: Fresh cases and active cases continued to fall in Tamil Nadu, but the daily toll remained high with 478 people succumbing to the viral infection on Monday.
Active cases were down to 3,01,781, which remained the second highest in the country after Karnataka (3,13,730).
New cases dropped to 27,936 compared to 28,864 on Sunday. The 478 deaths took the cumulative toll to24,232. Some 77% of those who died had comorbidities.
Coimbatore with 3,488 new cases continued to report more cases than Chennai (2,596). But Chennai reported 91 deaths.
Positivity rate
The positivity rate in the western belt — districts such as Tirupur (35.8%), Coimbatore (33.9%), Erode (30.3%) — is keeping the state average stagnant at 20.3%, although districts such as Chengalpet (27.6%) and Chennai (16.4%) have shown a steep decline.
The public health department says the high positivity rate in the central region - Tiruvarur (27) and Trichy (24) —show that cases in this region could be peaking. At least 20 of the 37 districts in the state have the weekly average positivity rate above the state average.
Sivaganga (10.2) and Kancheepuram (10.6) have the lowest test positivity rate.
Bed availability
The number of beds vacant in Covid hospitals has increased by 71% in the last one week. Last Monday, a total of 13,722 beds were available for patients. But now, the number has increased to 23,469. This included 7,022 oxygen-supported beds and 577 ICU beds.
Even in Chennai, ambulance queues outside major government hospitals have vanished. Rajiv Gandhi Government General Hospital (RGGGH) has 750 vacant beds including 307 O2-supported ones.
In Puducherry, new cases dropped below the 700-mark for the first time after a gap of 40 days. The territory reported 627 fresh cases on Monday even as 1,629 patients recovered in the last 24 hours, bringing down the active cases to11,147.