TN records 543 new COVID-19 cases, 9 fatalities take toll to

Tamil Nadu has reported 551 newCOVID-19 cases, taking the overall infection count to 8,31,866while nine more fatalities pushed the death toll to 12,281,the Health department said on Tuesday.

Recoveries from the contagion continued to outnumberthe new infections with 772 people walking out of healthcarefacilities after getting discharged aggregating to 8,14,098, abulletin said.

The number of active cases stood at 5,487.

The state capital logged 152 new cases, while the restwere scattered across other districts.

Chennai continued to top the list of cases with2,29,386 infections of the more than 8.31 lakh reported in thestate.

Kallakurichi reported 'nil' fresh infections Tuesdaywhile the district had 25 active cases.

Chennai accounted for the majority of fatalities dueto COVID-19 with 4,072 deaths to the total state's overalltoll of 12,281.

As many as 21 districts have added new cases in singledigits, while 31 districts reported zero fatalities.

A total of 51,461 samples were tested on Tuesday,totalling to 1,53,31,269 specimens examined so far.

Among the nine fatalities reported Tuesday, sixsuccumbed in private hospitals while three in governmentfacilities.

All the deceased were ailing with pre-existingmorbidities or chronic illness.

Three of the individuals who tested positive includereturnees from West Bengal and Andhra Pradesh, the bulletinsaid.

Meanwhile, the government said it administered COVID-19 vaccines to 9,446 beneficiaries and in total 25,908 peopleon priority list including health workers have been immunisedsince the launch of the vaccination drive.

In 166 session sites, a total of 9,446 people werevaccinated (including 9,305 Covishield and 141 Covaxin) fromJanuary 16 to 19, a release from the Department of PublicHealth and Preventive Medicine said.

About six lakh people including healthcareprofessionals are on priority list for vaccination andvaccines are provided free of cost to beneficiaries by thegovernment.

The vaccination drive was rolled out January 16.PTIVIJ SSPTI PTI