The State reported 15,637 new cases of COVID-19 on Wednesday, when 1,55,882 samples were tested over the past 24 hours. The test positivity rate on Wednesday was 10.03%.
New cases continue to show a rising trend in many northern districts, giving rise to apprehensions that there could be a resurgence in cases even whilst the second wave was plateauing. Seven districts in the reporting new cases between 1,000 and 2,000 now.
The active case pool, which had last month gone below one lakh patients, has been rising steadily for the past two or more weeks and on Wednesday stood at 1,17,708. The number of recoveries reported on the day was 12,974.
Death toll
There seems to be no let up in COVID deaths either, even though the pressure on the health system has eased. An average of 100 deaths are still reported in the State in a daily basis.
The cumulative case fatality rose to 14,938 with the State adding 128 deaths, most of which occurred in the past few days, to the official toll on Wednesday.
On Wednesday, the number of patients in the State newly admitted to hospitals with COVID rose to 2,373 taking the total number of patients who are being treated for moderate or severe infection currently in hospitals in the State to 24,610.
Total ICU admissions of critically ill COVID patients in the State, in both public and private hospitals has remained more or less unchanged for the past two weeks and rose slightly to 1,985, while the number of patients requiring ventilator support also went up to 724 on Wednesday. The cumulative case burden now stands at 31,03,310 cases.
Among the districts, Malappuram reported the highest number of new cases with 2,030 followed by Kozhikode 2,022, Ernakulam 1,894, Thrissur 1,704, Kollam 1,154, Thiruvananthapuram 1,133, Palakkad 1,111, Alappuzha 930, Kannur 912, Kottayam 804, Kasaragod 738, Pathanamthitta 449, Wayanad 433, and Idukki 323 cases.
