Kerala’s COVID-19 case graph, which has been on a steady climb since the past one week or more, went up by 7,006 cases on Saturday, taking the State’s cumulative case burden till date to 1,67,939.
The State has also been increasing the daily testing of samples in proportion to the rise in daily case burden, with 58,799 samples tested in the past 24 hours. However, the test positivity continues to remain at a high of 11.9, indicating the extent of disease transmission.
The number of recoveries made on Saturday is 3,199.
With the total recoveries reported so far being 1,14,530, the active cases in the State now is 52,678. Of these, 378 persons are critically ill and being treated in ICUs, with 93 on ventilatory support.
The number of new hospital admissions on Saturday was 3,446.
State’s COVID-19 toll rose to 656, with another 21 deaths between September 3 and 25 being added to the official list. Six of these deaths were reported from Kasaragod, four from Alappuzha, three each from Malappuram and Ernakulam, two from Thrissur, and one from Pathanamthitta.
Locally acquired infections accounted for 6,761 of the 7,006 new cases reported on Saturday (96.5%), consistent with the changed epidemic picture in the State, wherein local transmission has replaced almost all of the imported cases of infections.
In 664 of these cases, the authorities have not been able to pinpoint the source of infection. The locally acquired infections include those reported in 93 healthcare workers, of whom 22 cases are from Thiruvananthapuram and 15 from Kannur.
Thiruvananthapuram scaled another new high on Saturday, with the daily case burden jumping to 1,050 cases from the 800-odd cases reported the previous day. All except four are locally transmitted infections.
The district also tops the State when it comes to the number of active cases, which now stands at 9,519.
Cases are rising steadily in other districts too. Malappuram has 826, Ernakulam 729, Kozhikode 684, Thrissur 594, Kollam 589, Palakkad 547, Kannur 435, Alappuzha 414, Kottayam 389, Pathanamthitta 329, Kasaragod 224, Idukki 107, and Wayanad 89 cases.
Top five districts, including Thiruvananthapuram, account for a chunk of the active cases in the State. Kozhikode has 5,421 patients on treatment, Ernakulam 5,512, Kollam 4,403 and Malappuram 4,245. In all districts, except Idukki and Wayanad, the number of active cases is over 2,000.
The number of hotspots in the State at present is 652.
