It might be early days yet to rejoice, but if the data being released by the Health Department are reliable, Kerala’s COVID-19 case graph is indeed showing a downward trend with cases evidently declining in many districts.
However, the declining trend is not likely to be permanent and the case graph could spike again every time an exogenous factor – like school reopening, Sabarimala pilgrimage or local body elections – has the play, public health experts have cautioned.
On Tuesday, the State registered 6,591 new cases, when 53,901 samples were tested in the past 24 hours, taking the cumulative case burden to 3,53,472 cases.
The number of recoveries reported on the day, exceeded the number of new cases, with 7,375 patients leaving hospitals. The test positivity rate went down from 13.7% to 12.2 %.
The total number of recoveries till date has been 2,60,243. The number of active cases or patients currently undergoing treatment in hospitals is 91,922. Of these, 768 are critically ill and being treated in ICUs, with 193 patients on ventilator support.
Though a week ago, it did look like the State’s active cases were inching towards the three lakh mark, the number of recoveries have been on the high side all of last week, balancing out the increase in new cases.
The Health Department added 24 deaths to its official list of COVID deaths on Tuesday, taking the cumulative death toll to 1,206.
Thiruvananthapuram, Thrissur, and Malappuram reported five deaths each, Kannur four, two each in Ernakulam and Alappuzha and one at Pathanamthitta.
Of the new cases, 6,486 cases (98.4%) are locally acquired infections, with the source of infection remaining unknown in 707 cases. The number of healthcare workers who contracted the infection is 62.
Among districts, Thiruvananthapuram, which had been reporting the highest number of cases consistently for the past several months, has now fallen to the eight place.
Thrissur reported the highest number of cases on Tuesday at 896, Kozhikode 806, Malappuram 786, Ernakulam 644, Alappuzha 592, Kollam 569, Kottayam 473, Thiruvananthapuram 470, Palakkad 403, Kannur 400, Pathanamthitta 248, Kasaragod 145, Wayanad 87, and Idukki 72.
Three districts have active cases well over 10,000. Ernakulam has 11,140 patients, Kozhikode 10,643, and Malappuram 10,504. Thiruvananthapuram’s active case load is declining and now stands at 9,307.
