Chennai, May 27 (PTI) Tamil Nadu on Friday logged 55 new COVID-19 infections, pushing the state's tally to 34,55,154 while the total number of fatalities remained unchanged at 38,025 till date, the health department said.

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The number of people who have recuperated from the viral disease rose to 34,16,728 with 41 more people getting discharged, leaving 401 active infections, a medical bulletin said.

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Chennai accounted for the majority of new cases with 35. Chengalpet recorded nine, Coimbatore and Tiruvallur clocked six, Virudhunagar recorded two while Cuddalore, Kanyakumari, and Kancheepuram recorded one case, each.

The state capital leads among districts with 219 active infections and overall 7,52,389 coronavirus cases.

A total of 14,609 samples were tested in the last 24 hours, pushing the cumulative number of tests so far to 6,65,73,454, the health bulletin said.

Meanwhile, the government appealed to collectors and commissioners of corporations to continue to have surveillance and keep track of the COVID-19 infections and "not allow any drift or slackening" in the efforts to any dip in prevention and control of the virus.

In his message to collectors, Principal Secretary (Health and Family Welfare Department) J Radhakrishnan said the department was receiving reports of individuals testing COVID-19 positive after attending domestic functions leading to a cluster in the family.

"Considering higher COVID numbers in Mumbai, Maharashtra, New Delhi, Kerala and steady but definite increase in Chennai, Chengalpet, Kancheepuram, Tiruvallur, I would like to share a public health concern that apart from small institutional clusters, we are also getting few contact positives out of person picking it up after attending functions thus having family clusters," he said.

The increase in cases was an indirect pointer to the need that immunity levels were "waning" making the community susceptible for variants, sub-variants and lineages of the virus, he said.

"It is all the more important as the state despite over 93.74 per cent first dose and over 82.55 per cent second dose vaccination levels, still 43 lakh above 18 years of age are yet to take first dose," he said. About 1.22 crore people were eligible to take the second dose and 13 lakh people are yet to avail their booster dose.

"...we should make an effort that the eligible persons get vaccinated in right earnest," he said.

People who have symptoms should not ignore and attend functions or offices that could make others vulnerable but instead test themselves and isolate till results are out. If they test COVID-19 positive, they should get treated at home or hospital depending on the clinical needs, the senior official said.

"Health (department) and local bodies continue to have surveillance and keep track of numbers, for a successful and sustained preventive strategy. This would require you to involve all (officials) concerned not to allow any drift or slackening in the efforts leading to any dip in prevention and control efforts," he said.

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