For the second day, Tamil Nadu recorded more than 600 new cases of COVID-19 on Thursday. A total of 685 persons tested positive for the infection and five died, taking the overall tally of cases to 8,57,602 and the toll to 12,535.

Of this, Chennai accounted for 292 cases. Coimbatore and Chengalpattu followed with 52 and 51 cases respectively. While 49 persons tested positive for the infection in Tiruvallur, Thanjavur had 37 cases. Kancheepuram and Tiruppur recorded 23 and 21 cases respectively. Other districts that had more than 10 cases were Dindigul (12), Erode (19), Salem (18) and Vellore (19).

 

There were no new cases in Perambalur, while 25 districts recorded fewer than 10 cases each. The new cases included seven returnees — four from West Bengal, two from UAE and one from Uttar Pradesh.

With the fresh cases, Chennai’s tally stood at 2,38,007, followed by Coimbatore with 56,298 cases and Chengalpattu with 53,391 cases. The fatalities were reported in Chennai (3) and Chengalpattu (2). This included two women in their 50s. A 50-year-old woman from Chengalpattu, who had diabetes and hypertension, died at the Government Omandurar Medical College and Hospital a day after admission on March 8 due to pneumonia and acute respiratory failure, while a 58-year-old woman from Chennai with systemic hypertension died at the Rajiv Gandhi Government General Hospital on March 9 due to pneumonia and respiratory failure. The number of active cases increased to 4,344, with Chennai accounting for the most at 1,940. Another 543 persons were discharged after treatment, taking the overall tally of persons discharged to 8,40,723.

In the last 24 hours, 65,945 samples were tested. To date, 1,80,86,877 samples have been tested.