CHENNAI: One person died as Tamil Nadu reported an increase in new cases after eight days on Friday with 2,312 new cases compared to 2283 it reported on Thursday. The state discharged 2,682 people from the state registry, leaving 17,487 active cases in isolation either at home or hospital.
Health minister Ma Subramanian said booster doses will be made available in more than 2500 government vaccination centres free of cost for all adults who have taken their second vaccine six months ago. The state will also organise mega vaccination camps at least twice a month to increase vaccination. “So far more than 4 lakh people are due for either first or second dose of vaccine. We aim to give the booster doses for a maximum number of people within 75 days,” he said.
Chennai reported a decline to 618 cases compared to 682 on Thursday, followed by Chengalpet, which also reported a decline to 370 from 367 during the same period. In Tiruvallur cases declined to 168 from 176 and Coimbatore reported a drop to 153.
But with new clusters, fresh cases in Virudhunagar nearly doubled to 84. Tirunelveli reported an increase of 27 cases to 68 and Salem reported an increase of 16 new cases to 83.
All 38 districts reported new cases and the lowest was Tirupattur (3) followed by Mayiladuthurai (6), seven each in Karur, Ariyalur, and Kallakurichi, eight new cases in Dharmapuri and nine in Nilgiris.
By the end of the day, 10,358 of the 17,487 of active cases were in the Chennai region -- Chennai (6090), Chengalpet (2817) Tiruvallur (1022) and Kancheepuram (513). Coimbatore had 915 active cases. Every district in the state had at least 20 patients under isolation either at home or in hospitals.
There were 834 patients in the hospital including 289 on oxygen beds and 78 of them in ICUs. Of the 297 patients admitted to hospitals in Chennai 36 of them were in the ICU and 112 were on oxygen beds.
