Three men, all in their 40s, died in Chennai and Tamil Nadu’s overall tally of COVID-19 cases surpassed the 9,000-mark with 509 new cases added on Wednesday. After three days of reporting more than 500 cases, the number of cases marginally dipped to 380 in Chennai, and its case count climbed to 5,262.
With the fresh cases — 288 men and 221 women — reported in 16 districts across Tamil Nadu, the State’s total number of cases stood at 9,227. The total number of deaths due to COVID-19 increased to 64.
A health official said many persons who had died in the State had co-morbidities and tested for COVID-19 incidentally. “The direct cause of many of the deaths reported so far may not be COVID-19. We have had patients with multiple complications due to co-morbidities, and COVID-19 could have been the triggering factor,” he said.
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Another 42 persons were discharged from various hospitals in the State. This took the total number of persons discharged after treatment to 2,176. As on date, there were 6,984 active cases and 4,623 individuals suspected to have symptoms of COVID-19 in isolation facilities.
Andhra Pradesh witnessed one more death due to the virus and reported 48 fresh cases on Wednesday. Eight of the new cases were migrant workers from Odisha and seven from Chittoor and, East Godavari had visited Chennai’s Koyambedu market.
The State’s tally rose to 2,137 and the toll touched 47. Also, 86 persons from Guntur (27), Krishna (25), Kurnool (13), Kadapa (10), East Godavari (4), West Godavari (4), Anantapur (1), Nellore (1) and Srikakulam (1) recovered and were discharged, bringing recoveries to 1, 142.
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Also, 948 patients were under treatment in hospitals. New cases were from Guntur (12), Chittoor (11), Kurnool (7), East Godavari (4), Anantapur (3) and Krishna (3).
With 9,284 samples tested over 24 hours Andhra Pradesh had carried out 2,01,158 tests. The first one lakh tests were in the first 51 days since the first case and 1,463 of them were positive: a positivity rate was 1.4%. In the next 12 days, the rest of the tests followed and 674 samples tested positive, a rate of 0.68%.
The district tallies were: Kurnool (591), Guntur (399), Krishna (349), Chittoor (142), Anantapur (118), Nellore (111), Kadapa (97), West Godavari (68), Visakhapatnam (66), Prakasam (63), East Godavari (51), and Srikakulam (5), Vizianagaram (4) and other State cases, 73.
Ten more people tested positive for COVID-19 in Kerala on Wednesday, including six who were either expatriates or those who had come home from other States. Three cases were from Malappuram, two each in Wayanad and Palakkad and one each in Kozhikode, Kottayam and Kannur districts.
Four persons had come from West Asia recently and two were from Chennai, while four were seen as cases of local transmission.
Four cases of local transmission had been traced to a truck driver at Wayanad, who had been to Chennai. These included two policemen from Malappuram and Kannur, on duty to Wayanad. Health authorities estimated that at least 10 persons had contracted COVID-19 from the truck driver.
Of 534 COVID-19 cases in Kerala so far, 41 were under treatment in hospitals, and 490 recovered. The State put 34,447 persons under surveillance.
The spike in the COVID cases continued for another day in Telangana with 41 more persons testing positive to the virus on Wednesday, taking the total number of affected persons to 1,367.
The Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation area continued to be the focal point in virus spread with 31 more cases being reported during the day while the number of migrant workers returning to the State is turning out to be the major inflection point for the third consecutive day.
(With inputs from Vijayawada, Hyderabad and Thiruvananthapuram Bureaus)