The State registered 21,445 new cases of COVID-19 on Thursday when 1,45,582 samples were tested over the past 24 hours.
The case graph continues to be on a plateau, as it has been for the past two weeks and though hospitalisations have gone up, there has not been a significant or alarming change in the numbers. However, ICU and ventilator occupancy figures are beginning to go up slowly.
The test positivity rate remained at 14.73% on Thursday.
ICU occupancy of COVID-19 patients in both public and private hospitals in the State went up again from 2,075 to 2,101. The number of those patients requiring ventilator support has dropped from 817 to 800.
The active case pool has not shown much fluctuation over the past few days and now has gone up slightly to 1,76,518 patients. There were 20,723 recoveries on Thursday.
Death toll
The cumulative fatality is continuing to rise and now stands at 18,280, with the State adding 160 deaths, most of which occurred in the past few days, to the official toll list.
On Thursday, the number of patients in the State newly admitted to hospitals was 2,559. Total hospitalisations of those with moderate or severe infection now stand more or less stabilised, at 28,483.
The cumulative case burden was now 36, 31,638.
Among the districts, Malappuram reported the highest number of new cases on Thursday with 3,300 cases, followed by Kozhikode 2,534, Thrissur 2,465, Ernakulam 2,425, Palakkad 2,168, Kollam 1,339, Kannur 1,338, Alappuzha 1,238, Kottayam 1,188, Thiruvananthapuram 933, Wayanad 720, Pathanamthitta 630, Idukki 589, and Kasaragod 578 cases.
