TN virus cases tally crosses 28K mark, 12 more people die

Tamil Nadu continued to witness a surge in COVID-19 infections with 1,438 cases and 12 deaths reported on Friday, taking the count to 28,694 and fatalities to 232.

Of the fresh positive cases, Chennai alone accounted for 1,116 with the state capital's aggregate touching a whopping 19,826.

Continuing with the trend of a new high everyday, Tamil Nadu on the sixth straight day today reported 1,000 plus cases and the newly infected include six people from Qatar, five from Dubai and one from Sri Lanka, a health department bulletin said.

While 14 were returnees from Delhi, seven were from Maharashtra and those infected Friday comprises 851 men, 584 women and three transgenders.

The silver lining is that 12,697 are the active cases with 861 people getting discharged today from various hospitals and totally 15,762 have got cured of the illness caused by the pathogen.

Also, 800 plus recoveries in a single day is the highest in the past 10 days.

On May 24, 833 people were discharged while 939 recovered on May 16.

The deaths of eight men and four women, who succumbed to the virus, were reported today and the toll include a 44-year-old woman with chronic kidney disease and hypertension, the bulletin said.

With the capital city registering an unabated spike in COVID- 19 cases, the Tamil Nadu government announced a group of five ministers to oversee work by the Greater Chennai Corporation (GCC) and the field support teams.

Of the 15 zones in the GCC, each minister has been assigned three zones and they would monitor the containment efforts by the corporation and the field support team, a government order said.

Adjoining Chengelpet and Tiruvallur districts cumulatively have 1,624 and 1,191 cases respectively.

As many as 15,692 samples were tested today and totally 5,60,673 specimens have been examined.

Tamil Nadu has 74 testing centres, including 44 in the government and 30 in the private sector.