Tamil Nadu continued to witness a surge in COVID-19 infections with 1,438 new cases and 12 deaths reported on Friday, taking the count to 28,694 and fatalities to 232.
Of the fresh positive cases, Chennai alone accounted for 1,116 with the state capital's aggregate touching a whopping 19,826.
Continuing with the trend of a new high everyday, Tamil Nadu on the sixth straight day reported 1,000 plus cases. The newly infected include six people from Qatar, five from Dubai and one from Sri Lanka, a health department bulletin said.
While 14 were returnees from Delhi, seven were from Maharashtra, and those infected Friday comprises 851 men, 584 women and three transgenders.
The silver lining is that there are only 12,697 active cases with 861 people getting discharged today from various hospitals. So far, 15,762 people have recovered.
With the capital city registering an unabated spike in COVID- 19 cases, the Tamil Nadu government announced a group of five ministers to oversee work by the Greater Chennai Corporation (GCC) and the field support teams.
Of the 15 zones in the GCC, each minister has been assigned three zones and they would monitor the containment efforts by the corporation and the field support team, a government order said.
