NE NEWS SERVICE
CHENNAI, DEC 7
Tamil Nadu on Tuesday added 710 new Covid-19 infections, including two returnees from West Bengal, pushing the tally to 27,31,945, while the death toll rose to 36,549 with 10 more fatalities.
Recoveries eclipsed new infections with 731 people getting discharged in the last 24 hours, aggregating to 26,87,414 leaving 7,982 active infections, a medical bulletin said.
A total of 1,00,393 samples were tested in the last 24 hours, pushing the cumulative number of specimens examined to 5,49,85,621.
Chennai and Coimbatore accounted for the majority of new infections with 126 and 122 cases, respectively, while the remaining were scattered across other districts.
As many as 23 districts reported new Covid-19 infections below 10, while Ariyalur, Pudukottai and Virudhunagar clocked zero new cases each, the bulletin said.
Meanwhile, Minister for Medical and Family Welfare Ma Subramanian said the government’s new scheme ‘Nammai Kaakum 48’ to help the injured in road accidents would be launched by Chief Minister M K Stalin at the Melmaruvathur Adhiparasakthi Institute of Medical Sciences and Research on December 18.
About 610 hospitals of which 205 government-run facilities while 405 private have been roped in, he said. The scheme would cover the injured people whichever district or state they may hail from, he said.
Outlining the concept behind the roll out of such a scheme, Subramanian said majority of the accident victims were unable to receive health care ‘immediately after sustaining an injury.”On a day 50-60 deaths occur while it was about 1,500 to 1,800 a month in Tamil Nadu due to road accidents”.
On the vaccination front, Subramanian said the number of people who received the shots in the state breached 7.50 crore.
On reports of issuing fake vaccination certificates to people who have not received the jabs, he said the department has appointed an official in every district to sort out such issues. The department was also advised to initiate action against those staff who issue such fake certificates, he said.
Reiterating his earlier comments that the ‘omicron’ variant of Covid-19 was not ‘detected’ in the state, he said, nine people who arrived from the “high risk” countries have tested Covid-19 positive and were currently under treatment.
“Six of them are being treated at government hospitals while two in private. One individual is under home quarantine,” he added.
The number of ‘high risk’ countries also increased to 13 which include Ghana and Tanzania apart from the existing 11, he said. The countries are – Bangladesh, Brazil, Botswana, China, Europe, Israel, Hong Kong, Mauritius, New Zealand, Singapore, the United Kingdom.
