The number of persons testing positive for COVID-19 a day surpassed 34,000 in Tamil Nadu, taking the active case-load past 2.5 lakh on Wednesday. A total of 34,875 persons tested positive and 365 died, taking the overall case tally to 16,99,225 and toll to 18,734.
The State now has 2,53,576 active cases. Of these, Chennai accounts for 48,326, followed by Coimbatore with 27,189 persons and Chengalpattu with 15,237 persons. The active cases rose to 11,126 in Madurai and 11,390 in Tiruvallur.
In Chennai, 6,297 persons tested positive and 91 persons died. This took the overall case count to 4,56,496, while the toll crossed 6,000. There were 2,275 cases and 46 deaths in Chengalpattu, while Coimbatore reported 3,250 cases and 17 deaths.
There were 1,000-plus cases in five districts: Erode (1,362), Madurai (1,156), Tiruvallur (1,778), Tiruppur (1,573) and Tiruchi (1,459).
Kanniyakumari recorded 23 deaths, while there were 18 deaths in Tiruvallur. Of the 365 deaths (178 at private and 187 at government hospitals), 72 persons did not have co-morbidities. Among them was a 20-year-old man from Virudhunagar. He was admitted to a private hospital in Chennai with complaints of fever on May 14 and died of COVID-19 pneumonia on May 16. Four more persons, aged in their 20s, succumbed to the infection.
A total of 24 persons, aged in their 30s, died of COVID-19. Among them was a 32-year-old woman from Chengalpattu with dichorionic diamniotic twin gestation. She was admitted to the Chengalpattu Medical College Hospital on May 15 after testing positive on May 13. She died of COVID-19 pneumonia on May 17.
A total of 23,863 persons, including 6,266 in Chennai, were discharged after treatment. So far, 14,26,915 persons have been discharged. In the last 24 hours, 1,70,355 samples were tested. This has taken the overall sample count to 2,56,04,311. The number of persons tested so far is 2.50 crore.
Vaccination update
The State received another one lakh doses of Covishield on Wednesday. The overall vaccination coverage stood at 70,59,490, with 45,755 more persons vaccinated. These included 24,197 persons aged 45-59 and 10,109 senior citizens.
Meanwhile, the Union Territory of Puducherry recorded 29 deaths in 24 hours, taking the toll to 1,241, even as 1,759 new cases were added on Wednesday.
Puducherry registered 23 deaths, Karaikal five and Mahe one.
The patients were in the 33 to 85 age group, and 13 of them had no co-morbidity.
With this, the region-wise toll crossed the 1,000-mark in Puducherry, where the figure stood at 1,013, followed by Karaikal (131), Yanam (71) and Mahe (26).
