A day after Kerala registered over 10,000 coronavirus ( COVID-19 )cases for the first time, the State threw a surprise by registering barely over half that number – 5,445 cases – on Thursday.
Testing was carried out for 63,146 samples, bringing down the test positivity rate from a high of 14.6% to 8.6%.
The number of patients under treatment in hospitals was 90,579, of whom 571 were critically ill and another 164 on ventilator support.
Another 24 deaths were added to the COVID-19 toll, taking the cumulative number to 930. Thiruvananthapuram accounted for 10 deaths, Kozhikode eight, Kollam three, Kasaragod, 2 and Ernakulam one.
Of the new cases, 5,195 of 5,445, were locally acquired infections, including in 73 healthcare workers.
With the exception of Malappuram district, which recorded the highest number of 1,024 cases, other districts reported a dip to less than 700.
Kozhikode had 688 cases, Kollam 497, Thiruvananthapuram 467, Ernakulam 391, Thrissur 385, Kannur 377, Alapuzha 317, Pathanamthitta 295, Palakkad 285, Kasaragod 236, Kottayam 231, Wayanad 131 and Idukki 121.
Telangana State recorded 1,896 positive cases on Wednesday.
Twelve more patients died. There were 21,724 people under home/institutional quarantine.
In all, 50,367 samples were tested on the day and samples collected per million population was 91,264.
Greater Hyderabad added 294 positive cases on Wednesday. Medchal-Malkajgiri and Rangareddy districts reported 211 and 154 cases respectively, Nalgonda (126), Siddipet (100), and Karimnagar 97 new cases.
Kumrambheem Asifabad district reported the lowest number at five, Narayanpet (11), Bhupalpally (15) and Nirmal (18), the Health department said.
Andhra Pradesh continued to report less than six thousand daily infections, with 5,292 on Thursday. The death toll rose with 42 more fatalities in the past day.
The positivity rate of 66,944 samples was 7.91% and overall positivity rate of 63.49 lakh samples tested was 11.65%. The tests per million ratio rose to 1.18 lakh and the cases per million to 13,852.
The new cases and deaths were as follows: Chittoor (784 and 5), East Godavari (652 and 5), West Godavari (612 and 2), Prakasam (591 and 6), Guntur (493 and 3), Krishna (399 and 3), Anantapur (362 and 4), Kadapa (323 and 3), Nellore (311 and 4), Srikakulam (204 and 0), Visakhapatnam (198 and 4), Vizianagaram (188 and 1) and Kurnool (175 and 2).
At 5,121 new cases, Bengaluru Urban had another record spike on Thursday. This week alone, from October 1, Bengaluru Urban reported 34,699 cases.
Meanwhile, overall 10,704 new cases were reported in the State. There were 101 more deaths, 43 of them from Bengaluru.
The State recorded more 1,05,248 tests including 51,221 rapid antigen tests, the second day of over one lakh tests. With this, the total number of tests rose to 56,29,550.
(With inputs from Hyderabad, Vijayawada and Bengaluru bureaus)
