COVID-19: One more death, 69 new cases reported in TN

A 64-year old woman died of COVID-19 in Tamil Nadu on Tuesday taking the toll due to the disease to seven in the state while 69 more people tested positive as the tally rose to 690, a top health department official said.

As many as 63 of the new cases were returnees of Tablighi Jamaat congregation in Delhi, taking their total among the positive cases in the state to 636, Health Secretary Beela Rajesh said.

Asked if the state government has recommended extension of the 21-day COVID-19 national lockdown to the Centre, she said the matter was being looked into and the "government will take a decision."

The woman, who died at the Rajiv Gandhi Government General Hospital here, had co-morbid conditions like hypertension and diabetes, she said.

 

"A resident of Chennai, she was in the hospital for only about one-and-a-half-hour and we are tracing her contacts," the official said adding she hailed from a "high risk" area.

However, she did not name the locality from where the woman hailed.

With this, the number of COVID-19 deaths in the state has risen to seven.

'Death audit' that looked into reasons surrounding fatalities was being done and an expert committe comprising government and private doctors recommended strengthening of treatment and monitoring protocols and death prevention is a key goal, she said.

Of the new positive cases, as many as 63 were returnees of the jamaat meet held in Delhi's Nizamuddin area recently, she said.

As regards the six others, three belong to a single family, one had a history of inter-state travel, another a contact background with an international traveller and the source of one person was being traced, she said.

Out of the 1,630 Jamaat meet attendees, 636 have tested positive and 961 negative and 33 samples was under process, she said.

"More samples from them are being taken and they are coming voluntarily," the Health Secretary said.

About 66,000 people are under home quarantine which includes those with international travel history, she said.

As many as 19 people have been discharged so far following recovery, she said.

A government bulletin showed Chennai continuing to top the list of infected in Tamil Nadu with 149 cases followed by Coimbatore (60) and Dindigul (45).

The least affected districts include Perambalur and Ariyalur which have one case each.

The official said testing facility has been expanded with the addition of two more centres -- one at government-run IRT Perundurai Medical College Hospital in Erode District and another a privatelab.

Tamil Nadu now has 11 labs in government and six in private sectors.

About 14,000 testing kits from the National Institute of Virology, Pune, were now available with the government and more have been ordered, she said.

Micro-level planning, which includes GIS mapping with the help of the state-run Anna University, was being done to go in for 'rapid testing' across Tamil Nadu on arrival of kits (from China), she said.

Chief Minister K Palaniswami had on Monday announced procurement of one lakh testing kits from China.

Containment initiatives have been expanded to 34 districts covering 15 lakh households and about 53 lakh people were being screened by deploying over 30,000 filed personnel, the official added.