Thiruvananthapuram: 449 people tested positive for coronavirus and 162 patients were cured of the deadly disease in Kerala on Monday, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan informed during his press conference at Thiruvananthapuram.
Of the positive cases today, 144 had contracted the disease through contact. While 140 came from abroad, 64 came from other states. Among the 144 contact cases, the source from which 18 people got infected is not known.
With this, the number of confirmed coronavirus positive cases rose to 8,322. The number of active cases in the state is now at 4,028, while 4,257 people recovered from the disease.
This is the fourth time Kerala is reporting over 400 cases in a single day.
District-wise breakup of today's positive cases:
Alappuzha – 119
Thiruvananthapuram - 63
Malappuram – 47
Pathanamthitta – 47
Kannur – 44
Kollam – 33
Palakkad – 19
Kozhikode – 16
Ernakulam – 15
Wayanad – 14
Kottayam – 10
Thrissur – 9
Kasaragod – 9
Idukki – 4
District-wise breakup of patient's cured:
Malappuram – 28
Palakkad – 25
Kannur – 20
Wayanad – 16
Thrissur – 14
Kottayam – 12
Ernakulam – 12
Kollam – 10
Kozhikode – 8
Alappuzha – 7
Kasaragod – 5
Thiruvananthapuram – 3
Pathanamthitta – 2
Among those infected with the deadly virus on Monday are five health workers, two in Thiruvananthapuram district and one each in Malappuram, Kozhikode and Kasargod districts. In addition, 77 ITBP personnel in Alappuzha district, 10 DSC jawans and four fire force employees in Kannur district, and a BSF personnel and three KSEB employees in Thrissur district were also infected.
COVID deaths
Two deaths have been confirmed by Pinarayi on Monday - Thagarajan Achari and Ayesha Hajjumma.
Thyagarajan, 74, who died on Sunday, was undergoing treatment for COVID-19 at Kollam Medical College. Whereas, 64-year-old Ayesha was a cancer patient. Her husband is also coronavirus positive and his source of infection is unknown.
Abdul Salam, 72, who was under treatment for COVID-19 died in Kottayam earlier on Monday. However, Salam's death has not been confirmed as a death due to COVID by the state government. The Kerala government's official death toll now stands at 33. This does not include Mehraoof, who hailed from the Union Territory of Puducherry and Abdul Rahman, who died en-route from Hubli in Karnataka to Kasaragod.
Key points from CM's speech:
• The Chief Minister commended the residents of Poonthura community for realising the error in their ways due to a misunderstanding and honouring medical professionals.
• Test positivity rate in Kerala is the one of the best in the world. "Our test positivity remained below 2 per cent till recently," he said.
• Test per million versus case per million is 44 in Kerala.
• Case fatality rate in Kerala is 0.3 per cent compared to 4.38 per cent in the world and 2.6 per cent in India.
• Death per million statistics in Kerala is 0.9 per cent compared to 17 per cent in India.
• All these statistics suggest that Kerala is handling the COVID-19 pandemic in an efficient manner compared to the rest of the world.
Quarantine and testing
A total of 1,80,594 people are now under observation in various districts of the state. Of these, 1,76,218 are in home or institutional quarantine and 4,376 are in hospitals. 713 persons were admitted to the hospital today, the highest till date.
During the last 24 hours, 12,230 samples were tested. A total of 4,16,282 samples have been sent for testing so far, and out of these, the results of 5,407 samples are awaited. In addition, as part of Sentinel Surveillance, 74,676 samples were collected from high-risk groups and 78,002 samples were negative.
Seven new places were declared as hotspots and six were excluded. Now, there are 223 hotspots in the State.