Tamil Nadu reports yet another high with 1438 Covid-19 cases

CHENNAI: Tamil Nadu reported the highest ever single-day spike, on Friday with 1,438 cases, taking the total tally of cases to 28,694 the media bulletin confirmed.

This comes as the government nominated five ministers on Friday to oversee Covid-19 related works undertaken by Chennai Corporation and field support teams.

The Ministers include D Jayakumar, KP Anbalagan, R Kamaraj, RB Udhayakumar and Vijayabaskar who will be monitoring the work in specific zones.

Throughout the course of this week, Tamil Nadu has been consistently breaking its own records reporting huge spikes in the number of positive cases.

On Friday, as many as 1116 of the 1438 cases were from Chennai. With 19,826 cases in all, the city is the worst-affected district in the State that is inching towards the 20,000 mark.

The media bulletin confirmed that 12 people succumbed to the infection on Friday taking the death toll to 232. Further, 861 patients were discharged taking the total recoveries in the State to 15,762.

A total of 1571 children under the age of 12 have been affected by the infection so far.

On Sunday, Tamil Nadu extended the lockdown till June 30, even as it eased restrictions in most parts of the State in line with the Centre’s ''Unlock 1.0" guidelines.

As on June 4, as many as 1,33,562 passengers entered Tamil Nadu by various modes of travel. Of them, 1773 have tested positive for Covid-19, the bulletin confirmed.

The media bulletin stated that 5,35,254 individuals have been tested so far and that 684 samples are under process.

As per the new guidelines in the State, the state government has allowed public transport to resume throughout the State except for Chennai, Kanchipuram, Thiruvallur and Chengalpattu districts, which have recorded the highest number of cases in recent times. The ban on inter-state transport, however, continues.

The state government has continued its ban on religious places under the new guidelines. It has also extended the ban on theatres, gyms and educational institutions. Further, tourist destinations like Ooty, Kodaikanal and Yercaud will continue to remain out of bounds for tourists.

All e-commerce activities, too, including the delivery of non-essential items, will be allowed outside Chennai from Monday. Liquor shops outside Chennai will also be open from 10 am to 8 pm. In addition to offices, restaurants and other commercial establishments too have been allowed to operate in non-containment areas.