Kerala’s daily COVID-19 cases crossed the psychological barrier of 10,000 on Wednesday, touching 10,606.
The State registered the record spike when tests were hiked to 73,816, again a record for a single day.
The test positivity rate was steady at 14.3% even when the tests were hiked by over 10,000, indicating steady community transmission.
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Earlier projections were for the State to record over 10,000 cases daily when the epidemic curve touched the peak. However, going by current trends, the epidemic peak could be weeks away, officials said.
The toll from the virus rose with 22 more deaths being added. Thiruvananthapuram accounted for 14 deaths, Malappuram five and Idukki, Alapuzha and Kollam recording one case each.
Among districts, four registered over a 1,000 cases, with Kozhikode registering the highest at 1,576, Malappuram 1,350, Ernakulam 1,201 and Thiruvananthapuram, 1182 cases.
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Thrissur had 948 cases, Kollam 852, Alapuzha 672, Palakkad 650, Kannur 602, Kottayam 490, Kasaragod 432, Pathanamthitta 393, Wayanad 138 and Idukki 120 cases.
Thiruvananthapuram had the maximum number of active cases at 12,867 and there were 12,267 in Ernakulam and 11,161 in Kozhikode, while Kollam had 8,596 cases.
With daily tests crossing one lakh on Wednesday, Karnataka too reported the highest single day spike with 10,947 new cases. This was the fourth time cases were above 10,000.
Bengaluru Urban district reported 5,000 cases and 55 of the 113 fresh deaths statewide on Wednesday.
The State conducted 1,04,348 tests, the highest so far, including 55,690 RT-PCR tests.
Telangana recorded 2,154 cases on Tuesday and eight deaths. The State conducted 54,277 tests. The new cases included 303 from Greater Hyderabad, 205 from Rangareddy, 187 from Medchal-Malkajgiri, 124 from Nalgonda, 121 from Khammam, 96 from Karimnagar, and 92 from Bhadradri-Kothagudem.
Andhra Pradesh added 5,120 cases on Wednesday. During the same period, 34 new deaths were reported.
For the first time in nearly two-and-a-half months, active cases were less than 50,000. Of 66,769 fresh samples tested, 7.67% returned positive.
New cases and deaths were as follows: Chittoor (807 and 4), East Godavari (807 and 5), West Godavari (575 and 2), Krishna (464 and 4), Guntur (433 and 3), Anantapur (424 and 4), Nellore (367 and 3), Kadapa (301 and 2), Prakasam (264 and 1), Visakhapatnam (190 and 4), Srikakulam (172 and 0), Vizianagaram (172 and 0) and Kurnool (144 and 2).
(With inputs from Vijayawada, Hyderabad and Bengaluru bureaus)