Tamil Nadu sees one more death and 76 fresh cases of Covid-19; 26 journalists from a single channel test positive

CHENNAI: Tamil Nadu reported one more death and 76 fresh cases of the novel Coronavirus on Tuesday taking the total number of positive cases in the State to 1596 with 18 deaths.

Following two journalists testing positive in Tamil Nadu on Sunday, testing was conducted for journalists. On Tuesday, 26 journalists at a news channel tested positive for Covid-19, taking the number of journalists testing positive to 29 in the State. The rest of the results had not been released as of print time.

According to the media bulletin released on Tuesday, the number of active cases in the State dropped to 940 from 1,048 on Sunday. Further, 178 patients were discharged on Tuesday taking the total number of recovered patients to 635.


There was no media briefing on Tuesday, however, the bulletin said all the cases were 'contact cases' of some kind.

Chennai continues to be the worst affected district with 358 cases, followed by 134 cases in Coimbatore. On Tuesday, the highest number of cases were reported in Chennai which had 55 people testing positive.

Rapid testing will take a backseat in the State which has procured 36,000 tests from China. This comes after the ICMR on Tuesday insisted that States stop the usage of rapid testing kits for Covid-19 for the next two days, as it has shown inaccurate results in Rajasthan and West Bengal.

When questioned about the accuracy and reliability of these rapid testing kits that have been ordered from China, the Tamil Nadu Health Secretary Beela Rajesh had told the media that it had been approved by an expert committee and the ICMR on April 9.

In all, 22,254 people are under home quarantine, 145 in government quarantine facilities and 1,917 people under isolation at hospitals across the state.

As many as 53,045 samples and 47,168 persons have been tested so far in the State. Testing of 1,990 samples are under process, the government bulletin stated.