Kerala reported 6,394 new COVID-19 cases on Wednesday when 63,891 samples were tested in 24 hours, taking the State’s cumulative case burden to 7,90,882 cases.
More testing seems to yield more cases in the State and the test positivity rate, which had been staying around 9% in the past two weeks, touched 10.01% on Wednesday.
With a significant number of new cases and fewer recoveries reported on the day, the active case pool in the State surged to 65,057 cases. A total of 5,110 persons reported to have recovered on the day , the cumulative recoveries reported till date in the State rose to 7,22,421 cases.
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25 more deaths
The COVID-19 toll in the State rose to 3,209 when 25 new deaths which took place in the State in the past several days were added to the official list of COVID fatalities on Wednesday. Palakkad and Kozhikode accounted for four deaths each, three each in Malappuram and Thiruvananthapuram, two each in Alappuzha, Kannur and Ernakulam and one death each in Kollam, Pathanamthitta, Idukki, Thrissur and Wayanad.
The number of critically ill COVID-19 patients in the State who are currently being treated in ICUs in various hospitals in the State is 791 on Wednesday, according to official reports, with 225 of them requiring ventilator assistance.
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Of the 6,394 new cases reported on the day, in 69 cases, the Health Department has reported a history of travel outside the State while 6,325 are locally acquired infections. Amongst the locally acquired infections, in 551 cases the source of infection remains untraced while the number of healthcare workers who acquired the infection is 51.
Among districts, Ernakulam reported the maximum number of new cases with 1,068 cases, Kozhikode 729, Pathanamthitta 666, Kottayam, 555, Kollam 548, Thrissur 502, Alappuzha 446, Malappuram 432, Thiruvananthapuram 416, Idukki 271, Palakkad 255, Kannur 219, Wayanad 210 and Kasaragod 77 cases.
Two more from U.K.
Two more persons who arrived in the State between December 9 and 23 from the U.K. have tested positive.
With this a total of 43 persons from the UK during the specified period have tested positive.
Though over 31 samples had been sent to NIV, Pune, for genomic analysis, the presence of the UK virus variant was reported only in six samples till date.