Kerala registered 23,500 new cases of COVID-19 on Wednesday when 1,62,130 samples were tested over the past 24 hours.
The test positivity rate, which had soared to 15.91% on Tuesday, dropped to 14.49% on Wednesday.
ICU occupancy of COVID patients in both public and private hospitals in the State showed a slight dip at 2,075. But the number of those patients requiring ventilator support has climbed from 787 to 817 now.
The State’s active case pool has not shown much fluctuation over the past few days and now has gone up slightly to 1,75,957 patients, with 19,411 patients reported to have recovered on the day.
The official cumulative COVID-19 case fatality in the State is continuing to rise and now stands at 18,120, with the State adding 116 deaths, most of which occurred in the past few days, to the official list of COVID deaths on Wednesday.
The number of patients in the State newly admitted to hospitals with COVID on Wednesday was 2,371. Total hospitalisations of those with moderate or severe COVID now stands more or less stabilised at 28,489, even though new cases daily are rising.
The cumulative case burden of the State ever since the pandemic began, now stands at 36,10,193 cases.
Among districts, Thrissur has overtaken Malappuram as the district reporting the highest number of new cases on Wednesday with 3,124 cases. Malappuram has 3,109, Ernakulam 2,856, Kozhikode 2,789, Palakkad 2,414, Kollam 1,633, Alappuzha 1,440, Thiruvananthapuram 1,255, Kottayam 1,227, Kannur 1,194, Pathanamthitta 696, Idukki 637, Wayanad 564, and Kasaragod cases.
