TN’s tally crosses 78,000 mark

CHENNAI: Tamil Nadu continued to witness a spike in coronavirus cases with the state on Saturday reporting 3,713 cases and 68 fatalities, pushing the infection count to 78,335 and death toll to 1,025.

For the third straight day, the state reported over 3,500 cases. The number of recoveries was at 2,737 today, totalling to 44,094 people getting discharged from health care institutions after recovery, a state health department bulletin said.

With the government laying emphasis on ramping up testing of samples, the number tested on Saturday was at 34,805, taking the count to 10,77,454.

Active cases in the state stood at 33,213, the bulletin said.

Over 10.42 lakh Covid-19 tests have been conducted in Tamil Nadu and the focus was to cover the population street-wise for early detection and treatment, Health secretary J Radhakrishnan said here on Saturday.

The basic idea of detecting the symptomatic cases through fever camps is to ensure a healthy population by early detection and treatment for Covid-19, he said.

“So, when people step out of their houses after the lockdown is relaxed, they do not emerge as carriers of the virus,” Radhakrishnan told reporters after reviewing a fever camp at Tondiarpet.

He said Tamil Nadu has tested over 10.42 lakh samples for Covid-19, after the capacity was ramped up in the State.

Of these tests, 70 per cent of them were done in government facilities, he said.With aggressive testing continuing to be the focus, 33,675 samples were tested on Friday alone and in total, 10,42,649 specimens have been examined.

Tamil Nadu has 89 testing centres, 47 in government and 42 in private facilities.