Kerala reported 29,673 new cases of COVID-19 on Friday, when 1,33,558 samples were tested in 24 hours.
The test positivity rate showed a decline and registered 22.22%. As expected, 10 days after the State scaled the peak of the epidemic, deaths are beginning to rise. There is always a two to four weeks lag between the time the cases peak and the deaths begin to peak.
On Friday, the State added 142 recent deaths to the official toll, taking the cumulative COVID-19 fatalities to 6,994.
The active case pool of the State, which had gone up to 4.45 lakh cases at the peak of the epidemic has been declining steadily and now has 3,06,346 patients — a significant decline from 3,17,850 cases of the previous day. On Friday, 41,032 persons were reported to have recovered from their disease, taking the cumulative recoveries to 19,79,919.
However, much of these recoveries are reported in patients with mild COVID illness and who are mostly recovering at home or an institution. Hospital admissions continue to remain high, indicating that patients with moderate or severe disease are continuing to occupy hospital beds and ICUs and that their recovery period is prolonged.
On Friday, 3,524 persons were newly admitted to hospitals. The total number of hospitalised cases, which had shown a slight decline on Thursday, again went up on Friday to 38,709.
Total ICU admissions of critically ill COVID-19 patients in the State in both public and private hospitals was 3,899, while the number of those on ventilator support showed a slight decline at 1,492.
In Thiruvananthapuram district, the active case pool has significantly come down to 21,963 patients. But it has the maximum number of COVID patients in hospitals in the State at 5,998.
Among districts, Thiruvananthapuram reported the highest number of new cases with 4,151, Malappuram 3,499, Ernakulam 3,102, Palakkad 3,040, Kollam 2,745, Thrissur 2,481, Kozhikode 2,382, Alappuzha 2,072, Kottayam 1,760, Kannur 1,410, Idukki 1,111, Pathanamthitta 878, Kasaragod 650 and Wayanad 392.
