Covid-19 pandemic: Tamil Nadu logs 720 new cases, 9 deaths

The new cases took the state's Covid tally to 2,726,917

Chennai recorded a slight increase in new Covid-19 infections on Tuesday as 720 cases were added to Tamil Nadu's tally, pushing the caseload to 27,26,917.

The new cases included two returnees from Bihar.

As many as nine people succumbed to the virus, taking the death toll to 36,481, a medical bulletin said.

Recoveries eclipsed new infections with 758 people getting discharged in the last 24 hours, aggregating to 26,82,192 leaving 8,244 active infections.

A total of 1,00,048 samples were tested in the last 24 hours, pushing the cumulative number of specimens examined to 5,42,70,347.

Chennai, which reported 105 cases on Monday, clocked 115 new cases today followed by Coimbatore with 109 cases, while the remaining was scattered across other districts. Chennai reported 105 on Nov 27 and 107 on Nov 28.

As many as 23 districts reported new Covid-19 infections below 10, while Tenkasi recorded zero new cases, the bulletin said.

Earlier in the day, Health department principal secretary J Radhakrishnan took part in a review meeting chaired by Union Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan and explained about the measures taken by the government to enhance surveillance in Tamil Nadu following the emergence of new virus variant Omicron in South Africa.

Talking to reporters, Minister for Medical and Family Welfare Ma Subramanian said Tamil Nadu ranked top in the number of RTPCR samples testing and added that currently one lakh RTPCR samples were tested on a daily basis in the laboratories.

Stating that the state has not reported any Omicron variant, he said samples collected have tested Covid-19 positive from places where people gather in large numbers like shopping streets and commercial complexes, adding, the Delta variant was widely detected.

"Surveillance has been enhanced in all the four international airports of the State and monitoring of those passengers arriving from foreign countries have been intensified", he said.

"Today a meeting chaired by Union Health Secretary (Rajesh Bhushan) was conducted and Tamil Nadu health secretary (J Radhakrishnan) explained the preventive measures taken by the government", he said.