The State capital recorded a slump in COVID-19 cases on Sunday with the daily caseload falling below 400 for the first time after a week.
A total of 397 people tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 on the day, taking the number of COVID-19 patients in the district to 5,425.
With two more deaths—those of an 80-year-old Gandhipuram native and a 49-year-old Poojappura native, both of who died on August 19—being attributed to COVID-19, the official death toll in the district has gone up to 60.
Keeping up the trend of pandemic spread in the capital district, close to 97% of the cases have been attributed to local transmission. While these included 382 cases including 17 health workers, the sources of infection in 56 of these cases were unknown. Thirteen imported cases were also reported. The number of recoveries was recorded as 125.
Meanwhile, 51 prisoners who had been diagnosed with the disease in the Poojappura Central Prison have recovered from the illness. As many as 54 COVID-19-infected inmates were subjected to antigen tests on the day. With this, the number of prisoners who have tested negative for the infection has gone up to 158 within three days. The Central Jail had been categorised as an institutional COVID-19 cluster with 485 cases.
Meanwhile, District Collector Navjot Khosa conducted a webinar with cross-sections of the public as part of ensuring public participation for the containment efforts in the backdrop of the Onam festival season.
Elaborating on the COVID-19 scenario in Thiruvananthapuram, Dr. Khosa said that the district which had 12,294 cases contributed 21% of the total cases reported in the State till date. With 60 deaths, the case fatality rate in Thiruvananthapuram stood at 0.47%, slightly higher than the State average of 0.39%. The recovery rate is currently 57.9%, while the State average stood at 65.8%. Currently, the district had 29 clusters of which 14 were large clusters with over 100 cases.
