State’s COVID-19 case graph continued its exponential rise on Sunday too with 7,445 new cases being reported in the last 24 hours when 54,493 samples were tested. The number of recoveries also went up to 3,391.
With disease transmission intensifying, the test positivity rate (proportion of people who test positive amongst all tested) jumped from 11.9 to 13.6.
The cumulative case burden rose to 1,75,384. As total recoveries reached 1,17,921, the number of active cases at present is 56,709. Of these, the number of critically ill patients in ICUs is 380, with 92 patients on ventilator support.
The death toll rose to 677, with the Health Department adding 21 more deaths to the official list. Thiruvananthapuram accounted for six of these deaths; Kozhikode four; two each from Kannur, Palakkad and Ernakulam; and one each from Kollam, Alappuzha, Kottayam, Thrissur and Kasaragod.
Ninety five per cent of the new cases reported on Sunday – 7,077 out of the 7,445 new cases – are locally acquired infections, with the source of infection remaining unknown in at least 561 cases. This includes infections reported in 97 health-care workers, 19 of which are in Thiruvananthapuram, 17 in Kannur and the rest scattered across all districts.
As cases in northern Kerala surged, Thiruvananthapuram fell to the fourth place as far as the daily case burden is concerned. Kozhikode recorded the highest number of cases at 956 cases, Ernakulam 924, Malappuram 915, Thiruvananthapuram 853, Kollam 690, Thrissur 573, Palakkad 488, Alappuzha 476, Kottayam 426, Kannur 332, Pathanamthitta 263, Kasaragod 252, Wayanad 172 and Idukki 125.
Active cases in all districts have gone up, with Thiruvananthapuram inching closer to the 10,000 mark. The district has the highest number of active cases at 9,928, followed by Ernakulam 6,107 cases, Kozhikode 5,968 cases, Kollam 4,825, Malappuram 4,760. Excepting Wayanad and Idukki, all other districts have over 2,000 active cases.
The number of hotspots at present is 655.