In continuing vigorous transmission, Kerala registered 8,553 new cases of COVID-19 on Sunday, and conducted 58,727 tests in 24 hours.
The test positivity rate was steady at 14.5%. More testing was yielding more cases.
Critically ill patients in ICUs rose to 553, while patients on ventilator also showed a spike at 140. The State added 23 deaths which occurred over the past several days to the “provisional” list. Eight deaths took place in Thiruvananthapuram, six in Malappuram, four in Alappuzha, two in Ernakulam, and one each in Kollam, Palakkad and Kannur.
The new infections reported included 99 health workers. In 716 new cases, no specific infection source could be traced.
Kozhikode registered 1,164 new cases; Thiruvananthapuram, 1,119 cases. Close behind was Ernakulam wth 952 cases, Kollam 866, Thrissur 793, Malappuram 792, Kannur 555, Alappuzha 544, Palakkad 496, Kottayam 474, Pathanamthitta 315, Kasaragod 278, Wayanad 109, and Idukki 96.
The infection tally in Andhra Pradesh included over one lakh from East Godavari district alone. On Sunday, the State reported 6,242 new infections and 40 deaths.
Krishna (1.59%) and Chittoor (1.03%) districts had over 1% death rate. The infection tally in East Godavari was 1,00,785 and West Godavari touched 70,133, the two districts accounting for 24% of the total.
In the last one day, 72,811 samples were tested.
Chittoor reported the highest number of new infections while Krishna reported the highest number of new deaths. Chittoor and Godavari districts accounted for 40% of new cases.
Karnataka battled high incidence in Bengaluru, where 4,340 new cases were reported. Overall the State added 10,145 new cases on Sunday. There were 1.15 lakh active cases, 847 patients in ICUs and 67 more deaths.
The State government said 85,508 tests were done on Sunday, including 43,313 rapid antigen tests, while the remaining were RT PCR and other methods.
Telangana recorded 1,949 cases on Saturday. The first case was detected on March 2. While the first 50,000 cases were recorded in 144 days until July 23, the second 50,000 were detected in 29 days (July 24 to August 21).
The 1.5-lakh mark was crossed on September 9 and another 49,100 cases were added by October 3. From mid-September, around 50,000-55,000 samples were tested in a day except Sundays, leading to a rate of 2,000 to 2,400 cases a day.
On Saturday, 51,623 people underwent testing .
The new cases included 291 from Greater Hyderabad, 156 from Rangareddy, 150 from Medchal-Malkajgiri, 124 from Nalgonda and 114 from Karimnagar.
(With inputs from Hyderabad, Vijayawada and Bengaluru bureaus)
