5,420 new COVID-19 cases, 5,149 recoveries in Kerala

Doubling time of cases goes up from 59 to 69 days for Nov. 15-21 week

A dharna staged by the Institution of Homeopaths, Kerala, in Thrissur on Tuesday as part of its ‘My treatment is my right’ campaign. It alleged that AYUSH Department is ignoring homoeo medicines for prevention of COIVID-19.

Kerala reported 5,420 new cases of COVID-19 on Tuesday when 59,983 samples were tested in the past 24 hours, taking the State’s cumulative case burden to 5,71,872 cases.

Test positivity rate dropped to 9.04%. Bucking the trend of the past 15 days, the number of recoveries reported on Tuesday was fewer than the new cases reported at 5,149.

The active caseload of the State thus went up slightly than Monday’s figure to 64,412. The total recoveries till date is 5,05,238.

The weekly report of the State shows that the new cases — 37,609 — registered between November 15 and 21 is fewer than the cases registered in the previous week (November 8-14), which was 40,592. However, the number of recoveries, deaths, and tests conducted during these two weeks is not very different.

The doubling time of cases has, however, gone up from 59 (November 8-14) to 69 days in the November 15-21 week. The doubling time has come down from 67 days in the previous week to 61 days in Malappuram now, but in all other districts, the doubling time has been up. Also worrying is the fact that Malappuram remains the sole district where the test positivity rate has gone up from 15% (Nov 8-14) to 17.1% (Nov 15-21)

The addition of 24 more deaths to the official COVID death list on Tuesday has taken the State’s COVID toll to 2,095 cases. Seven of these deaths were reported from Alappuzha, four from Thiruvananthapuram, three from Thrissur, two each from Palakkad, Ernakulam, Kottayam, and Kollam, and one each from Malappuram and Kannur.

The number of patients who are critically ill and being treated in ICUs is 803, with 229 of them requiring ventilator support. Even when the State’s active caseload has been coming down steadily, the number of those who are critically ill and occupying ICUs has not changed much during the course of the pandemic in the State, after the case graph began climbing.

Of the 5,420 new cases reported on Tuesday, 5,337 are locally acquired infections, with no epidemiological link established in the case of 592 new infections. The number of health-care workers who contracted COVID is 52.

Among districts, Malappuram reported 852 cases, Ernakulam 570, Thrissur 556, Kozhikode 541, Kollam 462, Kottayam 461, Palakkad 453, Alappuzha 390, Thiruvananthapuram 350, Kannur 264, Pathanamthitta 197, Idukki 122, Wayanad 103, and Kasaragod 99.