The State added 26,011 new COVID-19 cases to its tally on Monday, when 96,296 samples were tested in the past 24 hours.
The dip in daily new cases was likely a reflection of the ‘Monday phenomenon’ that has been evident in the State since long when a decrease in testing over the weekend results in a lower daily case number. Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan pointed out that disease transmission in the State continued to be very high and that a high state of vigil had to be maintained.
The average test positivity rate (TPR) in the State registered 27.01% on Monday. The active case pool grew to include 3,45,887 patients.
ICU admissions up
Hospital and ICU admissions continued to rise in the State and most private hospitals reported a total saturation of ICU and oxygen beds and having to re-direct patients to other hospitals or even hospitals in neighbouring districts.
The number of COVID patients currently being treated in hospitals in the State has risen to 27,181, with 3,091 patients getting newly admitted in various hospitals on Monday.
The State now has 1,952 critically ill patients in ICUs, with 722 of them requiring ventilator assistance. Fifty patients were newly put on ventilators on Monday, indicating the severity of the crisis.
At present, a total of 7,12, 954 persons have been put on home or institutional isolation in the State. On Monday, 19,519 patients were declared to have recovered from COVID-19 and discharged from hospitals/institutions. The total recoveries till date is 13,13,109. The cumulative case burden of the State ever since the pandemic began, now stands at 16,64,789 cases.
45 deaths
On Monday, the State added 45 new deaths that had occurred over the past few days to its official COVID-19 toll, taking the cumulative toll in the State to 5,450 deaths.
This included 16 deaths reported from Thiruvananthapuram, 10 from Kozhikode, seven from Thrissur, four from Ernakulam, three each from Wayanad and Kannur, while one death each was reported from Malappuram and Kollam.
Ernakulam continues to have the highest number of active cases with 53,822 active cases, a slight dip in case number from the previous day, for the first time in several weeks.
Kozhikode (48,572), Malappuram (37,377), Thrissur (38,113) and Thiruvananthapuram (28,315) account for a chunk of the State’s entire case pool of active cases.
At 3,814, Thiruvananthapuram has the highest number of hospitalised patients. Ernakulam district, even with a much higher active case pool, has less hospitalisations at 3,578. Except for three, all other districts have at least 1000-1,500 hospitalised patients.
Among the districts, Kozhikode reported the highest number of new cases with 3,919 cases, Ernakulam 3,291, Malappuram 3,278, Thrissur 2,621, Thiruvananthapuram 2,450, Alappuzha 1,994, Palakkad 1,729, Kottayam 1,650, Kannur 1,469, Kollam 1,311, Kasaragod 1,139, Pathanamthitta 428, Idukki 407 and Wayanad 325 cases.
