The number of coronavirus cases in Tamil Nadu once again crossed the 500 mark on Sunday, with a total of 639 patients testing positive. Of these 558 were residents from Chennai, while 81 persons had returned from other states. With this, the state's total number of cases has reached 11,224, while Chennai has recorded a total of 6750 COVID-19 patients.
Of the 81 persons 73 had returned from the state of Maharashtra, 2 persons from Karnataka, 2 from Rajasthan, 3 from Telangana and 1 from Andhra Pradesh. The government tested 13,081 samples on Sunday alone for the virus and has till date tested a total of 3,26,720 samples. The number of deaths, meanwhile, stood at 4 on Sunday, taking the total fatalities in the state to 78.
Amongst those who died was a 63-year-old male who had systemic hypertension and chronic kidney disease. He was admitted to Rajiv Gandhi Government General Hospital in Chennai on May 15 and died a day later. The other three persons who died were in their forties.
This included a 44-year-old female from Chennai with rheumatoid arthritis and she died forty minutes after being brought into the hospital due to Sepsis/Septic shock. The second person is a 45-year-old female from Chennai with Diabetes, Hypertension and Bronchial Asthma. She died on May 16, nine days after being brought to the Government Stanley Medical College and had respiratory failure.
The third person was a 40-year-old male from Thiruvallur who was admitted May 12. The press release has mentioned no comorbidities for this patient but states that he died on May 17 due to acute respiratory distress syndrome and respiratory failure.
For the second consecutive day, Tamil Nadu saw a large number of COVID-19 patients discharged. On Sunday, 634 persons were discharged from hospitals across the states.
Earlier on Sunday, the Tamil Nadu government announced extension of lockdown in the state upto May 31 before the notification from the Central Ministry came. In 12 districts - Chennai, Kancheepuram, Thiruvallur, Chengalpattu, Villupuram, Cuddalore, Ranipet, Thirupattur, Kallakurichi, Thiruvannamalai, Ariyalur and Perambalur - the existing lockdown norms without any relaxations will continue until the end of this month.