Kerala logged over 30,000 cases for the third consecutive day on Friday and reported 32,801 new COVID-19 cases, when 1,70,703 samples were tested over the past 24 hours.
The test positivity rate again rose from 18.03% to 19.22% on Friday.
The State’s active case pool is poised to cross two lakh and now stands at 1,95,254. The number of patients reported to have recovered on the day was 18,573.
The official cumulative COVID-19 case fatality now stands at 20,313 with the State adding 179 deaths, most of which occurred in the past few days, to the official list on Friday.
Current ICU occupancy of COVID patients in both public and private hospitals has been rising since the past two days. On Friday, if 39 people were newly admitted to ICUs, 65 were newly put on ventilator support.
ICU occupancy was 2,170 on Friday and those requiring ventilator support jumped from 757 to 822 on the day.
The government is keeping a sharp eye on hospitalisations as the daily cases are surging. However, though the total hospitalisation figure has not risen significantly (because of a good recovery rate), the number of new patients reaching hospitals has been soaring since the past two days.
The number of patients newly admitted to hospitals rose significantly for the second day from 2,890 on Thursday to 3,101 on Friday. Total hospitalisation figures rose slightly from 27,425 on Thursday to 28,545 on Friday.
The cumulative case burden of the State now stands at 39,46,307 cases.
Malappuram reported the highest number of 4,032 cases, Thrissur 3,953, Ernakulam 3,627, Kozhikode 3,362, Kollam 2,828, Palakkad 2,727, Thiruvananthapuram 2,255, Alappuzha 2,188, Kannur 1,984, Kottayam 1,877, Pathanamthitta 1,288, Idukki 1,125, Wayanad 961, and Kasaragod 594.
