Kerala reported 5,440 new cases of COVID-19 on Sunday, when 48,798 samples were tested in the past 24 hours, taking the State’s cumulative case burden to 4,86,109 cases.
While the State’s case graph has stabilised over the past two weeks, public health experts are worried about the upcoming Sabarimala pilgrimage, when people from other States will also congregate and that this could turn out to be the trigger for the case graph to rise again to hit another peak.
Test positivity at 11.1%
The case graph having plateaued, the test positivity rate has also more or less been steady and touched 11.1% on Sunday.
The State also reported more recoveries than new cases on the day, as 6,853 patients left hospitals. The good recovery rate over the past two weeks has brought down the State’s active case pool substantially to 81,823. The cumulative recoveries registered in the State till date crossed four lakh on Sunday, at 4,02,477 cases.
24 deaths
The addition of 24 more deaths on Sunday to the official list has taken the State’s cumulative COVID-19 toll to 1,692. Thrissur accounted for nine of these deaths, Kannur four, Malappuram and Alappuzha three each, Thiruvananthapuram two, while Wayanad, Ernakulam and Kollam reported one death each.
At present, according to official estimation, 820 COVID-19 patients are critically ill and undergoing treatment in ICUs in various hospitals in the State, with 222 of them requiring ventilator support.
Of the 5,440 new cases reported on Sunday, all except 105 cases, are locally acquired infections. In 585 of these cases, no epidemiological link could be found . The number of healthcare workers who contracted the infection on Sunday was 51.
Among districts, Ernakulam reported 644 cases, Thrissur 641, Kozhikode 575, Malappuram 540, Kollam 488, Alappuzha 479, Thiruvananthapuram 421, Kottayam 406, Kannur 344, Palakkad 306, Idukki 179, Kasaragod 159, Pathanamthitta 153 and Wayanad 105 cases.
