CHENNAI: The State reported 54 new COVID-19 cases and two deaths on Thursday taking the tally to 1,683 and death toll to 20. Out of the fresh cases, 27 are from Chennai. As many as 90 pa-tients were cured and dis-charged on Thursday.
Dharmapuri district report-ed its first case as a 35-year-old truck driver with a travel his-tory to Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh tested positive.
In a worrying trend, at least 10 of the 54 persons are suspect-ed to have contracted the infec-tion from hospitals. This in-cludes two doctors, three staff nurses and a health inspector. Besides, three pregnant women and a new mother are also sus-pected to have caught the infec-tion from hospitals, sources in the Health Department told Ex-press. Both the doctors belong to private hospitals and the three nurses belong to govern-ment hospitals.
In all, 15 frontline workers, including two police personnel and a journalist, tested positive on Thursday. The source of in-fection in 27 of the 54 cases is not known.
One of the persons who died on Thursday was a 56-year-old woman being treated at a pri-vate hospital in Vanagaram. She tested positive on April 4.
Rajiv Gandhi Government General Hospital dean R Jayan-thi said, “A 70-year-old man who tested positive three days ago, died on Thursday. He had kid-ney problem.”
According to a media bulle-tin, the State has 908 active cas-es after 752 people were dis-charged and 20 died.
Confirmed: 1,683
Deaths: 20
Recovered: 752
CM Edappadi K Palaniswami on Thursday reassured his government’s commitment to medical professionals who are on the frontline fighting the coronavirus. “All those discharged from hospitals are praising the doctors and medical professionals who treated them. On behalf of the government, we join the people in praising you,” he told them during a video conference.
TENKASI: Responding to a tweet by CRPF jawan Ravikumar, CM Edappadi K Palaniswami instructed the administration to help the soldier’s 89-year-old mother who was struggling to get medicines owing to the lockdown. A medical team went to her home, did a check-up and handed over medicines for diabetes. A health inspector has been instructed to check her health status periodically. CM also tweeted that she did not have fever or cough.