The State on Tuesday reported 6,010 new cases of COVID-19 when 54,751 samples were tested in the past 24 hours, taking the cumulative case burden till date to 4,95,712 cases.
The test positivity rate (TPR), which had shot up to 18.16% on October 13 had slumped and reached between 12-14 % after October 25.
After nearly two weeks, the TPR dropped to 10.98%, indicating disease transmission plateauing to manageable levels. However, low levels of disease transmission is likely to continue across the State for a while before a perceptible dip happens.
Public health experts have cautioned the public to maintain physical distancing and universal masking and not to let up on the safety protocols so that the transmission does not flare up again.
On Tuesday also, more recoveries than new cases were reported, with 6,698 patients leaving hospitals.
The active case pool, which registered the maximum number of patients at 97,417 on October 24, has been declining steadily as the recovery rate seemed to pick up pace. The number of patients in the active case pool has come down to 78,694. The cumulative recoveries till date has been 4,15,158.
The Health Department added 28 more deaths which occurred between October 27 and November 8 to its official death list, taking the cumulative toll to 1,742.
Health experts put the unofficial toll to be at least 1,500 deaths more. The current case fatality rate of 0.35% would still be between 0.6-0.7% and way below the death rate in the rest of the country or other nations, if the State acknowledged these deaths too, they said.
Of the 28 deaths, Thiruvananthapuram accounted for six, Kottayam four, Kozhikode, Kannur, Palakkad, Thrissur and Kollam three each and Pathanamthitta, Ernakulam and Malappuram, one each.
Official estimates put the number of critically ill patients in various ICUs at 822, with 227 requiring ventilator support.
Of the new cases, 5,910 cases (98.3%) are locally acquired infections, with 653 cases remaining untraced to a known source of infection. The number of health-care workers who contracted the infection is 69.
Among districts, Kozhikode reported 807 cases, Thrissur 711, Malappuram 685, Alappuzha 641, Ernakulam 583, Thiruvananthapuram 567, Kollam 431, Kottayam 426, Palakkad 342, Kannur 301, Pathanamthitta 234, Wayanad 112, Idukki 89 and Kasaragod 81.
