Chennai: Though new Covid-19 cases are on the decline in Tamilnadu, the daily death toll in the State on Friday remained above the 450-mark for the 11th consecutive day.
A total of 463 people died of the pandemic on Friday, taking the toll to 26,128, the third highest in the country after Maharashtra (97,394) and Karnataka (30,531). Almost two-third of the 463 had comorbidities like diabetes or hypertension.
According to doctors, in the second wave of the pandemic, Covid-19 pneumonia with respiratory failure was one of the main causes of death.
As doctors witnessed a steep increase in the number of patients hospitalised in the second wave, they were taken aback by rapid disease progression and pneumonia, including in the young, unlike in the first wave.
Dr E Theranirajan, Dean of the Rajiv Gandhi Government General Hospital, said, “there is rapid disease progression in some patients. In the first wave, people who came in with mild lung involvement or patches in the lungs recovered with supportive line of treatment. However, even a 30 to 40 per cent lung involvement affected a patient badly in this wave.”