Tamil Nadu adds 1,797 new COVID-19 infections, 31 deaths

Tamil Nadu added 1,797 fresh COVID-19 cases on Wednesday, taking the overall tally to 25,94,233, while the death toll rose to 34,610 with 31 more deaths.

Recoveries eclipsed new infections with 1,908 people getting discharged in the last 24 hours, aggregating to 25,39,540, leaving 20,083 active infections, a medical bulletin said.

A total of 1,57,339 samples were tested in the last 24 hours, pushing the cumulative number of specimens examined to 4,02,66,227.

Six districts recorded the highest number of new cases with Coimbatore leading with 210, Chennai 198, Erode 156, Thanjavur 109, Chengalpet 108 and Salem 103. Virudhunagar recorded the least number of new infections by adding 5 new cases.

Twenty-seven districts reported new cases in double digits, while there were no fresh deaths in 23 districts.

Five of the deceased were without comorbidity or pre-existing illness. Five COVID-related deaths were recorded in Coimbatore, four each in Tiruppur and Salem, three in Nagapattinam, two each in Chennai, Kancheepuram, Tiruvannamalai and Tiruchirappalli.

Chengalpet, Cuddalore, Madurai, Nilgiris, Tiruvarur, Vellore and Villupuram reported one death each, the bulletin said.

Meanwhile, Medical Minister Ma Subramanian, after rolling out a battery operated car at the King Institute of Preventive Medicine and Research that was donated by SKCL Ltd, said the health department has suspended inoculating people with first dose of Covaxin as nearly four lakh vials were required to vaccinate the people who had already received the first dose (of Covaxin) in the state.

Talking to reporters, he said, the department received 39,08,250 Covaxin of which 36,31,545 people have received the jabs. "We have informed the Centre that to vaccinate people with second dose (of Covaxin) four lakh vials are required.Once we have the required amount of doses we will vaccinate the people," he said.

Stating that people who get vaccinated with Covishield have a time gap of 82 days to receive the second dose, he said, "Covishield vaccination is being done efficiently. But for Covaxin, the time gap between the first and second dose is 28 days. There is a delay in sending the vaccines by the Centre. That is why we are not able to vaccinate people with second dose (as per the schedule)." "We have stopped inoculating people with first dose (of Covaxin)," he said.

The health department received 2,52,43,530 vaccines (of both Covaxin and Covishield) till date and in addition to the 2,45,000 doses that were received yesterday, there were 8,89,877 vaccines in stock, he said.

Till date 2,70,30,337 people in Tamil Nadu have received the jabs. Nearly, 2,74,011 were pregnant women, 1,95,934 were lactating mothers and 1,28,385 were people with disability, the minister said.

In another 13 days the department was expecting to receive 27 lakh vaccines from the Centre as per the monthly allotment to the state, he said.

On the impact of virus, he said the Test Positivity Rate (TPR) in Tamil Nadu remains at 1.2 per cent and the number of RT-PCR tests conducted was around 1.50 lakh a day. "The number of daily virus infections have been on the declining trend but we have not reduced the testing of samples (in Tamil Nadu)," he added.