As on every Monday, Kerala’s COVID-19 case graph dipped in response to the dip in testing, to register 2,710 new cases when 25,141 samples were tested in the past 24 hours.
However, the test positivity remained more or less in the same range as the past week and touched 10.78% on Monday.
The State reported more recoveries than new cases on the day, with 6,567 patients leaving hospitals . The active case pool further dwindled to 70,925 cases, while the recoveries rose to 4,54,774 cases. The cumulative case burden now stands at 5,27,708 cases.
The weekly averages show that the State’s COVID-19 case graph could be beginning to dip. From 48,346 cases reported in the first week of November, the case load in the second week of November dipped to 40,592. However testing too went down from 4,03,374 tests in November first week to 3,74,534 tests in the second week.
The case doubling time has gone up from 45 days in the first week of the month to 59 days, in the week ending November 14, indicating that the pace of disease transmission has slowed down in the State.
19 deaths
On Monday, the State added 19 more deaths to its official list of COVID deaths, taking the cumulative toll to 1,888. Thiruvananthapuram accounted for five deaths, Ernakulam and Kannur four each, Kollam two, while Idukki, Palakkad, Malappuram and Wayanad reported one death each.
The State puts the number of critically ill COVID-19 patients being treated in ICUs at 921, with 216 requiring ventilator support.
39 health workers
Of the new cases reported on Monday, 2,655 cases are locally acquired infections with the source of infection remaining untraced in 269 cases. The number of healthcare workers who contracted the infection is 39.
Among districts, Malappuram reported 496 cases, Kozhikode 402, Ernakulam 279, Thrissur 228, Alappuzha 226, Thiruvananthapuram 204, Kollam 191, Palakkad 185, Kottayam 165, Kannur 110, Idukki 83, Kasaragod 64, Pathanamthitta 40 and Wayanad 37 cases.