Six persons, including two women in their 30s, died due to COVID-19 in Tamil Nadu, taking the toll to 53 till date.
This, on a day when the number of cases in the State passed the 8,000-mark, with 798 persons testing positive.
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It was a record single-day surge for both the State and its capital city. Of the new cases, Chennai alone accounted for 538, bringing its total to 4,371. Tamil Nadu’s tally stood at 8,002 as on Monday.
The deceased comprised four women and two men. According to the bulletin issued by the Directorate of Public Health and Preventive Medicine, a 32-year-old woman, a resident of Cuddalore and suffering from systemic hypertension, bronchial asthma and basilar artery aneurysm, was admitted to the Rajiv Gandhi Government General Hospital (RGGGH) on May 6 and died at 2.10 p.m. on May 8.
Another woman, a 36-year-old from Chennai, had diabetes mellitus and bronchial asthma and was admitted to RGGGH on May 9. She died at 7.30 p.m. the same day.
A 67-year-old woman with systemic hypertension, diabetes and hypothyroidism from Chennai, died at RGGGH on May 10, while a 66-year-old woman with systemic hypertension and coronary artery disease died in a private hospital on May 11.
A 50-year-old resident of Chennai with systemic hypertension and diabetes died at RGGGH on May 10 while a 65-year-old man with stage 4 carcinoma of the pancreas along with multiple metastasis, admitted to the Kanniyakumari Medical College Hospital, died on May 9.
The number of deaths has been rising steadily over the past week. A senior doctor said, “Private hospitals usually refer COVID-19 patients to government hospitals. Now, the number of referrals is more, and many of them have debilitating conditions. Many of these patients have multiple co-morbidities and have incidentally tested positive for COVID-19. Once they test positive, private hospitals are referring them to government tertiary care centres.”
Ninety-two patients were discharged from various hospitals. This brought the number of patients discharged to 2,051 in the State. There are 5,895 active cases in the State while 4,273 persons suspected to have symptoms of COVID-19 are admitted to isolation wards.
The 798 (514 men and 284 women) new cases were reported from 17 districts. Chennai and its neighbouring districts of Tiruvallur and Chengalpattu were the worst hit. While Tiruvallur had 97 cases, Chengalpattu had 90, taking the total in the two districts to 440 and 356, respectively.
Ariyalur had 33 new cases. There were 10 cases in Tiruvannamalai, eight in Kancheepuram, four each in Madurai and Ramanathapuram, three each in Thanjavur and Thoothukudi, two in Dharmapuri, and one each in Dindigul, Kanniyakumari, Perambalur, Ranipet, Vellore and Virudhunagar.
A health official said the cases continued to surge in Chennai due to a number of clusters. “Chennai has cases from the Koyambedu cluster, front line workers cluster, hospital cluster and mediapersons cluster. Royapuram, Thiru Vi Ka Nagar, Kodambakkam and Teynampet are the four highly-affected zones in the city,” he said.
The day saw a high number of children aged 0 to 12 testing positive in the State. A total of 63 tested positive, taking the total number of children affected till now to 427. Another 49 persons aged above 60 are among the new patients.
The number of samples tested dipped on Monday. A total of 11,862 samples were tested. With this, 2,54,899 samples have been tested so far in the State. Testing of 1,335 samples is under process.
