The State on Thursday reported 2,406 new COVID-19 cases, taking the cumulative case burden to 66,761.
With a total of 43,761 patients having recovered from the disease till date, including the 2,067 recoveries reported on Thursday, the number of patients currently under treatment in hospitals is 22,673.
Ten deaths were added to the official toll, taking the total number of deaths to 267. Four of these deaths were reported from Thiruvananthapuram, three from Kannur and one each from Alappuzha, Thrissur and Kozhikode.
On Thursday too, 92% of the new cases reported — 2,226 out of the 2,406 cases reported — were locally acquired infections, including that of 47 health-care workers. In 193 cases, no epidemiological link could be established for the infections.
Among districts, disease transmission seemed to show a slight dip in Thiruvananthapuram with 352 cases, of which 344 cases, including that of 15 health-care workers, are locally acquired infections.
Kozhikode reported 238 cases, Kasaragod 231, Malappuram 230, Palakkad 195, Kottayam 189, Kollam 176, Alappuzha 172, Pathanamthitta 167, Thrissur 162, Ernakulam 140, Kannur 102, Idukki 27 and Wayanad 25 cases.
The number of samples tested in the last 24 hours was 37,873. The number of hotspots at present is 604.
Briefing the media here, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan said that while the State was going through a crucial phase in the pandemic, the situation was not totally unexpected.
He said that adequate preparations had been made as the pandemic scaled its peak in the State and the health system was prepared to treat as many as eight-fold patients it currently had.
He claimed that the State had managed to keep disease transmission as well as the case fatality rate down, despite its various vulnerabilities, such as high density of population, a very high proportion of the elderly in the population and nearly 25% of the population suffering from various co-morbidities such as diabetes and hypertension.
Mr. Vijayan said the State had taken COVID-19 as an opportunity to strengthen the health system in a major way, augmenting testing and diagnostic facilities, setting up COVID hospitals and first line treatment centres, and enlisting more health-care workers to the frontline.
Mr. Vijayan cautioned people against a dangerous campaign that COVID-19 was a mild disease and that it turned fatal only in 1% of the people. Even this 1% would mean lakhs of death in a State with a population of 3.5 crore, he said.
He appealed to the public to be mindful of all COVID safety precautions and to pledge to ensure that the State has the lowest case fatality rate .
EOM