9,916 people test positive; Chennai and Coimbatore continue to record 1,000-plus cases
After nearly four weeks, the daily COVID-19 cases dropped below 10,000 in Tamil Nadu on Friday. A total of 9,916 people tested positive for COVID-19 in the State.In the current wave, the State’s daily tally had breached the 10,000-mark on January 8 (10,978). Only Chennai and Coimbatore continued to record 1,000-plus cases. Infections fell below 1,000 in Chengalpattu and Tiruppur. While 1,475 people tested positive for the infection in Chennai, there were 1,224 cases in Coimbatore. Chengalpattu and Tiruppur recorded 983 and 857 cases, respectively.Among other districts, Erode reported 576 cases, while there were 435 cases in Salem. The fresh cases took the State’s overall tally to 33,97,238.
Death toll
Another 30 people (19 in private hospitals and 11 in government hospitals) succumbed to the infection, taking the toll to 37,696. All 30 of them had co-morbidities. Chennai continued to account for the most number of fatalities as nine persons died. There were four deaths in Coimbatore and three each in Dindigul and Madurai. As many as 21,435 patients were discharged. They included 3,841 patients in Chennai, 2,815 in Coimbatore, 1,372 in Chengalpattu and 1,328 in Tiruppur. The number of active cases fell to 1,55,329 in the State. Of them, 24,800 were under treatment/home isolation in Chennai.
Vaccine coverage
A total of 1,27,356 samples were tested. This took the total number of samples tested so far in the State to 6,22,74,779.Over two lakh people were vaccinated against COVID-19 on Friday. Of the 2,19,066 people who were vaccinated, 1,56,112 were aged 15 to 18, while 33,222 were aged 18 to 44. This took the overall coverage of government vaccination centres to 9,30,72,007.The precaution vaccine dose coverage reached 4,07,279.