Fresh Covid-19 cases in Tamil Nadu cross 200 again

CHENNAI: Fresh cases of Covid-19 in Tamil Nadu crossed 200 for the second day on Saturday. The state added 219 new cases, two less than the tally on Friday, which included 111 cases in Chennai.
The active cases rose to 1,231 after 145 patients were discharged from the state registry. Chennai, Chengalpet (33), Tiruvallur (14) and Kancheepuram (12) reported 78% of the cases in the state. Besides the Chennai region, cases were increasing marginally in at least a dozen districts. Coimbatore reported 12 cases against three on Friday.
Kanyakumari reported six, and there were five each in Trichy and Madurai, two each in Erode, Tirunelveli, Ranipet, Kallakurichi, and one each in Nilgiris, Salem, Tuticorin, Tiruvarur, Tiruppur, Thanjavur, Villupuram, Virudhunagar, Namakkal and Perambalur. Sixteen districts in the state reported zero new cases.
“We must ensure that cases don’t spread in areas that were Covid free. The only way to do this is by following Covid appropriate behaviour and by taking vaccinations on time,” said health secretary J Radhakrishnan.
Health minister Ma Subramanian asked people to take their first and second doses of the vaccine at the mega vaccination camps scheduled for Sunday. “We will have one lakh camps across the state. So far 43 lakh people have not taken the first dose and nearly 1. 23 lakh have skipped the second dose. We encourage them to take the vaccine. Also, elderly who are eligible for booster doses must take them,” he said.
Of the 1,231 active cases, there were 684 in Chennai and 208 in Chengalpet. While Kancheepuram had 61, Tiruvallur and Coimbatore had 57 and 56 patients respectively. The number of people in hospitals rose to 73 from 60 on Friday and 51 on Thursday. By the end of the day, there were 32 patients in oxygen beds and five others in the ICU.