COVID graph continues to plateau in Kerala

With 7,201 new cases, test positivity rate stabilises between 12-14%

A man wearing a mask as a precaution against COVID-19 walks past a parked bus in Kochi.

Kerala’s COVID-19 case graph which hit a plateau in the last week of October, continues to remain there, the State registering between 7,000-9,000 cases on a daily basis since the past two weeks and the test positivity rate stabilised between 12-14%

On Saturday, the State registered 7,201 new cases, when 64,051 samples were tested in the past 24 hours, taking the cumulative case burden of the State to 4,80,669 cases.

The test positivity rate on Saturday was 11.2 %.

The State also reported 7,120 recoveries on the day, a good recovery rate, with as many or more recoveries than new cases on a daily basis being new another trend that became evident over the past two weeks. The cumulative recoveries till date has been 3,95,624.

The active case pool of the State, which went up to 97,000 plus cases on October 24 has been steadily going down and on Saturday stood at 83,261. The number of critically ill COVID-19 patients now being treated in ICUs in the State is 821, with 208 on ventilator support.

The addition of 28 more deaths to the official COVID death list on Saturday takes the State’s cumulative COVID toll to 1,668. Of these Kannur reported five deaths, Ernakulam and Alappuzha four each, Malappuram, Thrissur and Pathanamthitta three each, Kollam and Thiruvananthapuram two each and Kottayam and Kozhikode one each.

Of the new cases reported on Saturday, 7,105 cases (98.6 % ) are locally acquired infections, with 728 cases remaining untraced to a known source of infection. The number of health workers who contracted the infection is 61.

Among districts, Ernakulam reported 1,042 cases, Kozhikode 971, Thrissur 864, Thiruvananthapuram 719, Alappuzha 696, Malappuram 642, Kollam 574, Kottayam 500, Palakkad 465, Kannur 266, Pathanamthitta 147, Wayanad 113, Idukki 108 and Kasaragod 94 cases.