Kerala’s engagement with COVID-19 crossed a major milestone when the cumulative case burden of the disease reached 50,231 in the State on Wednesday.
The State’s daily case graph also reached a new high when the trend of the past two weeks of 1,500-1,700 cases suddenly spiked to 2,333 cases.
The exponential case graph of the State post lockdown has been no different from that of the rest of the world, indicating that none of the public health interventions could stop or even slow down the epidemic tide.
The number of patients currently undergoing treatment in various hospitals has swelled to 17,382. The State reported 1,217 recoveries and the total recoveries till date has been 32,611.
Alongside the increase in the number of active cases, COVID-19 death rate too has been showing a steady increase. The official death toll reached 182, with the Health Department confirming seven more deaths which occurred between August 12 and August 17. Three of e deaths were reported in Ernakulam, two in Thiruvananthapuram and one each in Kollam and Pathanamthitta.
Of the 2,333 new cases, 2,175 cases (93%) are locally acquired infections. This includes 17 cases of health-care workers. In 53 cases, the source of infection is yet to be pinpointed.
Thiruvananthapuram district continues to report the highest number of cases daily with 540 cases, of which 526 are locally acquired infections.
Malappuram too shows a steady rise with 322 new cases. Of these, 302 are locally transmitted infections. Three more districts registered over 200 cases on Wednesday, Alappuzha had 253 cases, Ernakulam 230 and Kottayam 203.
Among other districts, Kasaragod reported 174 new cases, Kannur 126, Thrissur 97, Pathanamthitta 87, Kozhikode 78, Kollam 77, Palakkad 65 and Wayanad 17.
The sudden spike in hospitalisations could trigger health system capacity issues in some districts, especially in Thiruvananthapuram, where the number of active cases has reached 4,621. Malappuram has 2,411 active cases, Ernakulam 1,698, Alappuzha 1,595 and Kozhikode 1,338. In rest of the districts, the active case number is still well below the 1,000 mark.
The State has quarantined over 1.69 lakh people, of whom 13,759 with mild flu-like symptoms are isolated in hospitals. The number of tests performed in the last 24 hours reached 36,291.
At present, 572 localities have been designated as hotspots.
