CHENNAI: Tamil Nadu on Thursday reported 6,472 fresh COVID infections, the highest single-day spike, with the tally inching towards two lakh cases while death toll touched 3,232 with 88 fatalities, the government said.

More than three fourths of the fresh cases were from districts other than Chennai, which continued to clock lower numbers, and of the dead, 77 had co-morbidities and 11 none, a health department bulletin said.

The state also recorded new daily high in the number of recoveries and testing with 5,210 people being discharged from various hospitals and a staggering 62,112 samples being examined.

Ten north Tamil Nadu districts, including Chennai, accounted for nearly 51 per cent of cases, and south's share was marginally higher than 30 per cent.

While Cauvery delta regions constituted less than 10 per cent, the remainder was scattered in the rest of the state. With the testing of62,112 samples (using RT-PCR), the cumulative specimens examined rose to 21,57,869. A 24-year old woman, and three men, aged 26, 35 and 94 were among the fresh victims of the deadly virus.

Tamil Nadu's COVID tally and Chennai's share of it inched towards two lakh and one lakh mark respectively.

The state's case count stood at 1,92,964 while that of Chennai touched 90,900, including 1,336 reported on Thursday. As many as 5,210 patients were discharged and the cumulative recoveries and active cases stood at 1,36,793 and 52,939 respectively.

The lion's share of fresh cases, in keeping with the current trend, has shifted towards regions barring the state capital which till last month had remained the badly affected.

Madurai, together with nearby Theni, Sivaganga, Virudhunagar, Tuticorin, Tirunelveli, Tenkasi, Kanyakumari and Ramanathapuram in the south accounted for 1,972 (30.46 per cent) fresh cases.

Districts including Virudhunagar (480) and Tuticorin (415) are seeing a marked increase in cases.

However, if the 1,121 cases scaterred in Chennai's three adjoining districts - Chengelpet, Kancheepuram and Tiruvallur- were added to the capital city's count of infections, the final figure worked out to 37.96 per cent.

Overall, the norther region comprising these four districts and also six others with 834 cases accounted for a little more than half (50.84 per cent) of the total cases in the state.
Villupuram recored 112 cases, Vellore 116, Ranipet 214, Tiruvannamalai 192, Tirupattur 68 and Kallakurichi 132.