Chennai: New cases in Tamil Nadu are just three shy cases of 2,000-mark on Thursday, when at least 20 districts, including Chennai, reported more infections than they entered on Wednesday.
The state reported 33 deaths and issued 1,943 patients, leaving 20,188 patients in the active registry, an increase from 20,117 patients on Wednesday.
With 220 new cases Coimbatore maintained the tag as a district with most cases everyday, but recorded a little dip from 226 cases on Wednesday.
After Coimbatore, Chennai reported 196 cases compared to 189 on Wednesday.
The neighboring chengalpet, Tiruvallur and Kancheepuram also reported an increase in cases with the highest increase reported in Tiruvannamalai, where cases rose from 37 on Wednesday to 64 on Thursday.
“We have increased testing in all districts and we track carefully contact,” said Health Secretary J Radhakrishnan.
“We have notified all the districts that the risk is still high because we report at least 1,700 average cases and new cases reported every day are uncertain.
Health workers should not drop their guards,” he said.
There is no improvement seen in the level of participants – the number of people testing positively every 100 people tested.
While the average state is around 1.3%, all districts have a level of pepositives below 2%.
Chennai is among the eight districts with a level of participation of around 1.5%.
However, R-Naught or the average number of people who will contract infectious diseases from one more than one in at least 18 districts.
Tiruvarur and Krishnagiri have the highest r value of around 17, while Chennai has 1.2.
Thirupathur and Tirunelveli have the lowest r value at 0.78 and 0.8.
Epidemiologists say increased value of R is the cause of worries, even though they prefer to wait a week before declaring a surge as the beginning of the third wave or blip on the chart.
Of the 33 deaths reported in the state, Tiruppur reported five, Chennai and Salem reported four each, while Coimbatore and Thanjavur reported three.
Twenty-two districts reported zero death.
TN vaccination 2.9 lakh people on Thursday, took the calculation of the dose to 2.2 crores.
Until Wednesday, 1.8 crores have received the first dose and 42.7 lakh second dose.
In addition to 22% of people in 18-44 years, 31% of seniors and 45% of people in 45-59 years have received at least one dose.