Tamil Nadu records 23 more Covid deaths

Tamil Nadu recorded 11 short of 6,000 fresh Covid-19 cases and 23 deaths on Saturday as the second surge continued unabated. Active cases jumped to 37,673 as just 1,952 patients were discharged. For the second consecutive day, the state reported more than one lakh vaccinations. By 7pm, 1.27 lakh had taken the jab. The state has a target of 2 lakh vaccinations a day.“We have used only about 36.5 lakh doses of the 54.8 lakh doses we received. We will have adequate stock,” said the director of public health Dr T S Selvavinayagam.
Health authorities were inspecting hostels, unoccupied housing board complexes and large community halls to be converted into Covid care centres. All medical college hospitals in Chennai have cut down on elective surgeries so resources can be diverted to management and treatment of Covid patients.
Health secretary J Radhakrishnan inspected the 500-bed centre set up by the Greater Chennai Corporation at the Victoria Boy’s hostel, which will be attached to the Government Multi Super Speciality Hospital at Omandurar. “Such centers worked well during the pandemic last year as they prevent crowding at tertiary care centers. We’ll use them this year too for patients with mild or no symptoms,” the health secretary said.
Chennai has 13 Covid care centres, not including hospitals, with 11,775 beds. By Saturday afternoon, active cases in the city touched 14,382, with 1,977 new cases added. Most Chennai hospitals were admitting patients from Chengalpet, Kancheepuram and Tiruvallur. On Saturday, cases in Chengalpet shot up to 615 compared to 465 on Friday. While Tiruvallur reported 212 new cases, Kancheepuram added 181, which pushed the day’s tally in Chennai region to 2985 – nearly 50% of the total cases reported in the state.
“The state will set up screening centres to triage patients to hospitals, health centres and covid care centres based on their medical condition,” Radhakrishnan said. “Now, patients are crowding Kings Institute and Omandurar hospital. We don’t want healthy patients occupying oxygen beds meant to treat sick patients,” he said.
After Chennai, thirteen districts reported new cases in three digits. After Chennai and Chengalpet, Coimbatore with 501 had the highest number of new cases. While Madurai(194), Trichy (187), Tiruppur (154), Nagapattinam (145), Salem(136), Cuddalore (127), Tirunelveli (117), Thanjavur(116) and Tuticorin (102) crossed the 100 mark, Krishnagiri (97), Kanyakumari (96), Ranipet (92) and Thiruvarur (92) were inching towards it.
The directorate of public health said that the case count and positivity rate have been increasing rapidly in Ranipet, Theni, Tiruvannamalai and Salem, besides Chennai, Chengalpet and Coimbatore. “The positivity rate in these districts is higher than national average. Our aim is to bring it below 5% and the only way to do it is by increasing testing,” said Dr Selvavinayagam.