Kerala’s daily tally of the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) on Thursday remained above the 32,000-mark for the second consecutive day with 32,097 new infections recorded in the last 24 hours, pushing the caseload to 41,22,133. A health update from the kerala government said the state had been seeing over 30,000 cases for the past few days.
The test positivity rate currently stood at 18.41 per cent with 1,74,307 samples tested in the last 24 hours. So far, 3,19,01,842 samples have been tested for the virus in the state, the government release added.
As many as 21,634 patients recovered and 188 succumbed to the viral disease in the last 24 hours. With this, the cumulative count of recoveries and deaths climbed to 38,60,248 and 21,149, respectively. On Tuesday, the state saw 32,803 cases, 173 deaths and 21,610 recoveries.
Of Thursday’s infection count, Thrissur saw the highest number of cases at 4,334, followed by Ernakulam (3,768), Kozhikode (3,531), Palakkad (2,998), Kollam (2,908), Malappuram (2,664) and Thiruvananthapuram (2,440).
Over 5,68,000 people continue to remain under surveillance across districts. Of these 5,34,805 are in home or institutional quarantine and 33,282 in hospitals.
The new cases in Kerala include 98 health workers, 102 people from outside the state and the remaining 30,456 people have been infected through contact with the source of the contact not being clear in 1,441 cases.
Kerala is currently the worst-hit state from the pandemic in India and is contributing the maximum to the country’s caseload. Amid the high test positivity rate in the state, sources in the Centre said the Pinarayi Vijayan-led government would have to implement strict containment measures and a strategic lockdown to bring down the number of infections.
“The Covid-19 test positivity rate is high in Kerala, going over 20 per cent in some districts which is evidence of intense virus circulation. As the state is following home quarantine as the key strategy, wider containment and strategic lockdown needs to be implemented to contain the transmission of the disease, especially in view of festivals,” one of the sources was quoted as saying by news agency PTI.
They also said with more than 85 per cent of the infected patients being in home isolation, it was crucial to have strict containment measures, adding, in multiple areas, patients are not adhering to the home isolation guidelines properly, which is leading to the increased spread of Covid-19.
