26,981 New Covid Cases In Tamil Nadu, 13% Increase After Pongal Celebrations

There has been a spike in Covid cases in villages as many people travelled to their homes for Pongal, the state's Health Minister said.

Tamil Nadu reported 26,981 new cases of Coronavirus in the last 24 hours, up by 12.9 per cent from yesterday, with the state's positivity rate at 18.6 per cent following celebrations of the Pongal festival. 35 people have died and 17,456 were discharged in the period.

There has been a spike in Covid cases in villages as many people travelled to their homes for Pongal, the state's Health Minister Ma. Subramanian said.

Cautioning people about a likely spike in cases over the next few days because of recent festival-related travel of around eight lakh people from the state capital Chennai. The infection has consequently spread to villages, he said, adding that 24,000 out of 1.21 lakh villages in the state have Covid cases. Breaking up the data, he elaborated that out of 1.27 lakh streets in the state, more than 28,000 have Covid cases.

The new cases were detected among the 1,44,816 samples tested today. 8,816 people with Covid are admitted in hospitals and the total number of active cases stands at 1,70,661.