Tamil Nadu adds 4,862 Covid-19 cases, Chennai tops the list with 2,481 cases

Of the 121 Omicron cases including three cases cross-notified to Kerala, Puducherry and Andhra Pradesh, there are eight active cases.

Addressing reporters on Wednesday evening, Health Department Principal Secretary J Radhakrishnan urged the public not to let their guard down with the surge in Omicron cases across the country. Saying that the health department has issued the guidelines regarding Omicron, he asked people not to panic and follow the safety guidelines issued by the government.

“As many as 1,16,587 beds are ready across the state for Covid-19. The overall occupancy as of now is below five per cent. We have the medical infrastructure, we have required stock of medicines, and as Health Minister said earlier, we will be having 100 centres that would offer treatment on traditional Indian medicine,” he said.

“Those patients (in Tamil Nadu) who were affected with Omicron were having infection on their upper respiratory tract unlike severe infection caused to the lungs (due to delta variant of Covid-19). That is some sort of comforting information, But at the same time, we cannot rule out that Omicron variant will not affect the lungs,” he said.

Radhakrishnan said that the government has stepped up the health infrastructure with 1.16 lakh beds readily available to treat Covid-19 patients in the state of which the occupancy level was below 5 per cent.

Earlier, the state government announced night curfew from Thursday and imposed a complete lockdown on Sundays in view of the surge in Covid-19 cases. Postponing Pongal festival-related events, not permitting the public to places of worship on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, allowing only 50 per cent occupancy in public transportations and metros are some of the other restrictions imposed by the state government.

In Puducherry too, infections continued to rise. According to PTI, as of 9 am on Wednesday, 73 fresh infections were recorded, taking the overall tally to 1,29,692. The new cases identified at the end of the examination of 2,727 samples were spread over Puducherry 50, Karaikal 13 and Mahe 10. However, there was no fresh fatality today and the toll remained in 1881. The active cases were 278 with 59 patients undergoing treatment in hospitals and the remaining 219 patients being in home isolation.

With inputs from PTI