As many as 628 deaths in the first 10 days of July and three Ministers and eight MLAs in hospital: this is highlight of the COVID-19 tally in Tamil Nadu, even as the State rejigged some of its officers handling the response to the pandemic, held discussions with a visiting Central team and tweaked its strategy. Minister Sellur K. Raju was admitted to a private hospital today. His Cabinet colleagues K.P. Anbalagan and P. Thangamani are already in hospital, being treated for the infection.
Tamil Nadu is now second only to Maharashtra in the number of infections. The total number of infected in the State stood at 1,30,261. It was 90,167 until the end of June. The total number of additional infections in the first ten days of July stood at 40,094. In comparison, the total number for June was 67,834. The total number of active cases as on July 10 was 46,105.
Though Chennai contributes as many as 74,969 of the total infections in the State (and the other districts account for 55,292), the trend in the past week is that the number of infections in the city is declining. Of the total of 3,680 new cases in the State on July 10, the districts accounted for 2,475 (67.3 per cent) of cases and Chennai 1205 (32.7 per cent). From July 7 onwards, the number in Chennai has been just over 1200, which, officials say, is an indication that the infection is on the wane in Chennai.
In all but one day of July, the number of deaths has been above the 60-mark. In comparison, only one person died in March; 26 lost their lives to COVID-19 in April; 133 died in May; and 1,041 died in June. The total number of people dead as on July 10 is 1,829. The death rate in Tamil Nadu has been remarkably low, a fact that both officials and health experts in the State routinely make to drive home the point that the State was proceeding in the right direction.
However, public health experts say that a few of the patients who die each day do not have any co-morbidities. On Friday, there were seven such cases, three from Chennai and one each from Madurai, Chengalpattu, Ramanathapuram and Coimbatore. On July 8 and 9, there were five such deaths each day and on July 7 there were 13 such deaths, according to a government release.
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