Tamil Nadu reports 2,000 plus COVID-19 cases for third consecutive day

Tamil Nadu on Friday reported 2,115 fresh coronavirus cases and 41 more deaths taking tally to 54,449 while the toll stood at 666, the government said.

Of the 2,115 cases, Chennai accounted for 1,322 and the state's total count of cases stood at 54,449 while the capital city's share in the aggregate number was 38,327.

Today is the third successive day of 2,000 plus cases in the state. Those dead include 31 with comorbidities and people without any concomitant illness include a 40-year old man.

The active cases are 23,509 and 1,630 people got discharged in a single day today. This is the highest recovery in the state so far for a day and in total 30,271 people have recovered.

While 27,537 samples were tested, cumulatively 8,27,980 specimens were examined and two more private labs were approved for COVID-19 testing today taking the number of testing centres in Tamil Nadu to 83 of which 45 are in government and 38 in private sector.

The 27,500 plus samples getting tested in a day is the highest till date. Greater Chennai Corporation Commissioner G Prakash said as part of initiatives to further augment detection of symptomatic people, thermal guns and pulse oximeters have been provided to health personnel and these will be used in fever camps and door to door surveys.

The devices have been distributed in three zones including Royapuram in north Chennai and all other areas will soon be covered, he said.

An oximeter is a device used to measure blood oxygen levels and if oxygen saturation was found to be below 94 percent, they need immediate health care.

About 4,000 volunteers have been deployed to render assistance to people in isolated households, he said and appealed to people to make use of zone wise control rooms for assistance.

There are 15 zones in Chennai and the control room/call centre number of the headquarters in Ripon Buildings is 044-2538 4520, 4612 2300.

About 450-500 fever clinics were being held on a daily basis here and people should disclose if they had any flu-like symptom to the doctors and health workers, the official said.

Regretting that a section of people do not disclose symptoms to civic body personnel, he said analysis of 501 COVID-19 deaths in the city showed that about 10 to 15 percent deaths may have been avoided had people revealed symptoms during daily surveys.

On the door to door fever surveillance exercise being carried out by over 11,000 field personnel of the civic body everyday since April, Prakash said due to the initiative, 17,011 people with symptoms were sent for testing out of which 6,391 people tested positive for the virus.

As on June 18, 2.10 lakh people got tested in Chennai corporation areas and 37,070 of them were positive.

While 19,686 recovered, 16,882 are either in hospitals, care centres or in home isolation and the recovery rate is about 55 per cent, he said.

Reports from Coimbatore said Municipal Administration Minister S P Velumani held a review meeeting with district and police officials to discuss the COVID-19 situation in the western district.

At the meeting, he said 2,094 beds were made available for exclusive COVID-19 treatment in ESI, government and private hospitals in the city.

The state government has taken steps to prevent the spread of infection and increased bed facilities in phases, he added.