Kerala reported 4,505 new cases of COVID-19 on Friday when 67,574 samples were tested over the past 24 hours, taking the State’s cumulative case burden to 10,25,937cases.
The test positivity rate on the day was 6.67%
Of the 67,574 tests done by the State, 39,578 were rapid antigen assay while the RT-PCR test numbers went up slightly to 25,469. Other molecular diagnostic tests such as Truenat and CBNAAT constituted the remaining tests.
The active case pool of the State, which remained between 60-65,000 cases for weeks, dropped below that for the first time on Friday with a good number of recoveries being reported daily. With 4,854 persons reported to have recovered, the active case pool in the State now has 59,814 cases.
The cumulative recoveries reported in Kerala till date has risen to 9, 61,789.
On Friday, 15 more deaths were added to the official list of COVID fatalities, taking the State’s COVID toll ever since the pandemic began to 4,061 deaths.
Alappuzha reported four deaths, Ernakulam three, Thiruvananthapuram, Thrissur and Kozhikode two each, while Malappuram and Wayanad reported one death each.
As on Friday, official reports said the number of critically ill COVID patients being treated in ICUs in various hospitals across the State was 742 with 222 of them requiring ventilator support.
Among districts, Ernakulam reported the maximum number of new cases with 535 cases, Kozhikode 509, Malappuram 476, Alappuzha 440, Kollam 416, Pathanamthitta 412, Kottayam 407, Thrissur 336, Thiruvananthapuram 333, Kannur 196, Palakkad 160, Wayanad 115, Idukki 97, and Kasaragod 73 cases.