Tests come down, new cases too

3,110 new cases on Monday at a test positivity rate of 8.81%

After the toil, cleansing: A doctor being disinfected by Corporation staff after he supervised a COVID-19 screening camp at the Corporation office in Kozhikode on Monday. K. Ragesh

Testing dipped by close to 50% as it does over the weekend every week, resulting in a dip in the number of new cases of COVID-19 reported in the State on Monday.

With just 35,281 samples tested over the past 24 hours, the number of new cases on Monday was 3,110. The test positivity rate was 8.81%, indicating that the disease transmission levels have not declined substantially across the State.

The active case pool of the State declined slightly to 63,346 cases as 3,922 recoveries were also reported on the day. The State’s cumulative case burden has risen to 8,14,258 cases while the cumulative recoveries reached 7,47,389 cases.

20 deaths

The State’s COVID toll now stands at 3,322 with the addition of 20 new deaths to the official list of COVID fatalities on Monday. Kozhikode reported five deaths, Ernakulam four, Palakkad three, Thrissur and Kannur two each, while Thiruvananthapuram, Kollam, Pathanamthitta, Alappuzha reported one death each.

The number of critically ill COVID patients in the State who are currently being treated in ICUs in various hospitals in the State is 771 on Monday, according to official reports, with 223 of them requiring ventilator assistance.

Of the 3,110 new cases reported on the day, in 45 cases, the Health department has reported a history of travel outside the State while 3,065 are locally acquired infections. Amongst the locally acquired infections, in 295 cases the source of infection remains untraced while the number of healthcare workers who acquired the infection is 40.

Among districts, Ernakulam reported the maximum number of new cases with 443 cases, Kozhikode 414, Malappuram 388, Kottayam 321, Kollam 236, Thiruvananthapuram 222, Alappuzha 186, Palakkad 176, Thrissur 168, Kannur `160, Idukki 141, Pathanamthitta 131, Wayanad 76 and Kasaragod 48 cases.

One more person, either a traveller from the U.K. who arrived in the State between December 9-23 or their contacts, have tested positive for COVID-19 in the past 24 hours.

So far, a total of 54 persons who arrived from UK during the specified period to the State have tested positive for COVID-19,though infection due to the UK virus variant B.1.1.7 has been detected in only six samples.