India News | TN Logs 602 New Covid-19 Cases; 5 Deaths

Chennai, Dec 21 (PTI) Tamil Nadu added 602 new Covid-19 infections on Tuesday including two returnees from the United Arab Emirates and Karnataka respectively, pushing the caseload to 27,41,013, while the death toll rose to 36,691 with five more fatalities, the Health department said.

Recoveries outnumbered new infections with 691 people getting discharged in the last 24 hours, aggregating to 26,97,244 leaving 7,078 active infections, a medical bulletin said.

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A total of 1,00,342 samples were tested in the last 24 hours, pushing the cumulative number of specimens examined to 5,64,16,650.

Chennai and Coimbatore accounted the majority of new infections with 132 and 95 cases respectively, while the remaining were scattered across other districts.

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As many as 25 districts reported new Covid-19 infections below 10, while Mayiladuthurai, Nagapattinam, Perambalur, Tenkasi and Theni recorded zero new cases, the bulletin said.

Minister for Medical and Family Welfare Ma Subramanian said the construction work for setting up 11 medical colleges in the state has been completed and the admission of 1,450 students in these colleges would commence 'soon'. "We expect the inauguration to likely happen in the presence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chief Minister M K Stalin, during the second week of January...," he said.

Meanwhile, in view of Christmas and New Year celebrations falling on Saturdays, the mega vaccination camp would be held on Sundays as against the current practice on Saturdays, he said.

The vaccination programme has been conducted in Tamil Nadu as a movement in the state and till date 84 per cent of the population has received the first dose, while 55.1 per cent have received the second dose, he said.

"In Madurai, the vaccination percentage was at 77 per cent for the first dose and 41.82 per cent second dose and this has to be increased", he told reporters in Madurai.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)