Puducherry adds 543 new coronavirus cases, 11 deaths take toll to 448

Puducherry reported 543 new

COVID-19 cases on Saturday taking the overall tally in the union territory to 22,456.

Eleven more people succumbed to the infection as the death toll rose to 448, Director of Health and Family Welfare S Mohan Kumar said.

The fatality rate was two per cent while the recovery rate was 76.63 per cent, he added.

The Health Department has increased testing of samples with improvement in the infrastructure and deployment of more manpower in the hospitals, he said.

The 543 new cases were identified at the end of examination of as many as 5,159 samples of swabs and blood.

The Health department Director said 494 patients were discharged during the last 24 hours ending 10 am on Saturday.

Of the overall 22,456 coronavirus infections, the active cases were 4,799 and 17,209 patients had recovered and were discharged, he said.

The Director said that 1,30,099 samples were tested so far and 1,01,462 samples out of them were found to be negative and result of the examination of the remaining samples was awaited.

Of the total 543 fresh cases in the whole Union Territory, Puducherry region accounted for 425 cases followed by 84 in Karaikal, 28 in Yanam and six in Mahe region.