As COVID-19 scales its peak in the State, spread of the disease is intensifying in many parts of the State with local transmission resulting in small clusters in many districts, as is evident in Alappuzha, Kannur and Malappuram.
The situation is grave in the urban areas in Thiruvananthapuram and Ernakulam, where several cases with no epidemiological link has been reported.
The number of new COVID-19 cases reported in a day crossed the 200 mark on Friday, with the State reporting 211 new cases, 34 of which are through local transmission. The rest 177 are imported cases of infection.
The cases which occurred through local transmission include family clusters as well as cases wherein the source of infection remains unknown. The 34 cases include six personnel of the Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) in Kannur and one air crew member.
Much to the relief of the Health Department, 201 recoveries were reported on Friday, which meant that only 10 cases were added to the burden of active cases. The cumulative number of cases reported ever since the outbreak began is 4,964, of which, those currently undergoing treatment in hospitals is 2,098. So far, 2,839 persons have recovered from the disease.
The number of people under State surveillance is 1,77,011, of whom, 2,894 with mild COVID-like symptoms are isolated in hospitals.
The total number of samples that were tested in the last 24 hours is 7,306.
Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan said the disease was now spreading in both urban and rural areas. While one had no control over the number of expatriates who are returning to the State and who might be diseased, the effort was to minimise local transmission from these cases.
At Ponnani in Malappuram district, where triple lockdown has been imposed following intense disease transmission, sentinel surveillance of 989 samples, including 681 employees of two hospitals at Edappal and 308 samples from five nearby panchayats, yielded three positive cases, he said.