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11 north Tamil Nadu districts log half the fresh Covid-19 cases, deaths

CHENNAI: For the sixth day, the state recorded a three-digit death toll of 118 deaths and added 5,883 fresh cases of Covid-19, which pushed the case tally to 2,90,907. The cumulative death toll touched 4,808. The number of active cases rose to 53,481 from 52,759 on Friday.


The case fatality rate – total deaths over total positive cases — was at least 2% in Chennai, Madurai, Ramanathapuram, Sivaganga, Dindugal and Salem compared to the state average of 1.6%.

The director of public health Dr T S Selvavinayagam said the state has one of the lowest mortality and highest recovery rates in the country. “We cannot compare the decreasing number of fresh cases to that of daily deaths. Most deaths reported now are of people who were infected nearly a fortnight ago,” he said.

On an average, symptoms for the viral infection show up on the fifth to seventh day of exposure and treatment begins after that. Health minister C Vijayabaskar said among the elderly and people with uncontrolled diabetes and hypertension, the risk increases several fold. “They report very sick to hospitals and many of them do not respond well even to aggressive therapy,” he said.

Despite seeing a steady drop, Chennai continued to report the maximum number of fresh cases and deaths. On Saturday, the district reported 986 cases and 20 deaths compared to 984 cases and 24 deaths on Friday. The recovery rate was the highest at 87%, with 11,734 people still under treatment. Chengalpet (425), Kancheepuram (284) and Tiruvallur (391) together recorded 1,100 cases and 18 deaths. Other northern districts together logged 847 cases and 19 deaths. The 11 northern, including Chennai, recorded 48% of the deaths and 50% of cases reported on Saturday.

The southern districts reported 1,811 cases and 34 deaths compared to 1,501 cases and 29 deaths the previous day. Theni recorded the most cases, 452. Madurai had 92 cases. Tirunelveli reported seven deaths, Sivaganga and Theni five each, and Virudhunagar, Dindigul and Madurai four each. There are 15,111 active cases in the 10 districts.

Both central and western districts saw a dip in fresh cases. The central districts together recorded 659 cases on Saturday, compared to 763 on Friday. The west logged 474 cases compared to 603. However, the eight western districts together reported 20 deaths – including 10 Coimbatore — compared to seven in the central zone.

In the past 24 hours, 65,872 people were tested for the viral infection. On Saturday, 5,043 people were discharged taking the total number of people cured to 2,32,618.

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