The State reported 30,491 new cases of COVID-19 on Thursday when 1,31,525 samples were tested in the past 24 hours. The test positivity rate has been remaining steady around 23% for the past three days and registered 23.18%.
The case graph seems to be stabilising and the State should now expect a prolonged plateau before the graph begins to decline. The current lockdown seems to be helping to slow down the spread of the virus. Public health experts are now suggesting a continuation of restrictions till the new cases and hospitalisations show a significant decline.
The active case pool is now declining steadily. With 44,369 recoveries, the active case pool has 3,17,850 patients. However, hospital admissions are not going down at the same pace, indicating that the recovery period is prolonged.
On Thursday, 3,972 persons were newly admitted to hospitals. The total number of hospitalised cases showed a slight decline for the first time in several weeks, from 40,199 on Wednesday to 38,685 on Thursday. Total ICU admissions of critically ill patients, in both public and private hospitals, went up to 3,972, up from the figure of 3,883 the previous day, while the number of those on ventilator support went up from 1,510 to 1,523.
The State’s case graph had peaked on May 12 and as expected, a week later, COVID deaths are beginning to spike. The State added 128 new deaths to the official list, taking the cumulative fatalities to 6,852. These are not deaths reported in the past 24 hours but which occurred over the past few days.
Thiruvananthapuram district has the maximum number of patients in hospitals at 5,929. Since weeks, an average of 600 patients have been getting newly admitted to hospitals daily in the district. Ernakulam has the highest number of active cases at 50,539, with 4,855 in hospitals. In both districts, hospitalisations continue to go up.
The cumulative case burden of the State now stands at 22,63,959 cases. The total number of recoveries till date is 19,38,887.
Among districts, Malappuram reported the highest number of new cases with 4,746, Thiruvananthapuram 3,969, Ernakulam 3,336, Kollam 2,639, Palakkad 2,560, Alappuzha 2,462, Thrissur 2,231, Kozhikode 2,207, Kottayam 1,826, Kannur 1,433, Pathanamthitta 991, Idukki 846, Kasaragod 728 and Wayanad 517.
