Fresh COVID-19 positive cases continue to be declared in bulk, but on Sunday an accumulation of negatives has given Kerala a different kind of a positive to take heart from.

For the first time after May 8, the number of people cured were more than the number of new cases declared.

On Sunday, 54 people were freshly declared positive but 56 had recovered, effectively reducing the number of active cases from 1342 on June 13 to 1340 today. (On May 8, 10 people were cured on a day when there was just a single new case in Kerala. Then, the total active cases were just 16.)

Significance of high recovery rate

In fact, Kerala is witnessing a commendable recovery in June. Recoveries began to show an upward trend in the post-influx phase from June 1 (18) and touched 62 on May 11, when new cases were 83.

The recoveries are going up even when Kerala still adheres to the Indian Council of Medical Research protocol that a patient should be discharged only if two back-to-back tests, 24 hours apart, shows negative.

If the patient, after a few days of hospitalisation, tests negative in the first of the back-to-back tests and lapses to positive in the second, the person's samples will have to be put through another round of twin tests. There are patients whose samples had to be taken more than 15 times.

New discharge norms

Now with cases increasing and the need to conserve test kits becoming more urgent, there is a growing demand to relax discharge norms.

“Patients should be discharged if they do not exhibit any symptoms for three or four days at a stretch. Countries like the Unites States and the United Kingdom have already put in place such measures to hold on to their inventory of test kits. It is high time the ICMR, too, thinks on these lines,” a top health-care professional said.

Enough beds to spare

Recoveries keeping pace with new cases also mean less strain on the health system. It shows that at the moment, when fresh cases are showing no sign of let up, the system could manage with 2000-odd beds. On Sunday, there were 2,023 in hospitals.

The government says it has more than 50,000 beds at its command. Nonetheless, limiting the number of hospital beds in use to below 2,500 or 2,700 by the end of June would be an assurance that the system would not creak and eventually collapse if things turned even worse.

Trouble in Chavakkad

However, more health workers being found out as positive in sentinel surveillance is both baffling and scary. On Sunday, for instance, four health workers in Thrissur's Chavakkad Taluk hospital – two junior public health nurses, the public relations officer and the lay secretary – were declared positive. The number of health workers in the hospital to test positive has risen to 9; five were declared positive on June 11.

It is unclear how the staff were infected. None of them is said to have had any contact with the only two people who had tested positive in Chavakkad: a man who had returned from Maharashtra and a dental doctor who had come to the Chavakkad Taluk hospital for treatment.

“An expert team is coming tomorrow to race the source of infection of the health workers,” said N K Akbar, the chairman of Chavakkad municipality.

Twenty three of Sunday's infected persons came from abroad (UAE-13, Saudi-5, Nigeria-3, Kuwait-2) while 25 came from other states (Maharashtra-13, Tamil Nadu-9, Karanataka-1, Delhi-1, Haryana-1). Three contracted the disease through contact (Thrissur - 2, Malappuram -1). Three health workers were also tested positive on Sunday.

Notably, no district has recorded cases in two digits today.

Here's the district-wise break-up of Sunday's cases:

Kozhikode - 8
Ernakulam - 7
Thrissur - 7
Palakkad - 6
Kasaragod - 6
Kannur - 4
Thiruvananthapuram - 4
Kottayam - 3
Malappuram - 3
Pathanamthitta - 2
Idukki - 2
Kollam - 1
Wayanad – 1

The maximum number of cases has been reported from Kozhikode – eight. Of them, five came from abroad and three from Chennai. The number of active cases in Kozhikode rose to 92.

Ernakulam and Thrissur reported seven cases each. In Ernakulam, three came from abroad and four from other states. Two of the patients are natives of Tamil Nadu while two belong to Ahmedabad and Maharashtra.

A 21-year-old woman of Kadavanthra who returned from Mumbai on June 8 is also among those tested positive. Two of her close relatives who came with her from Mumbai on train had tested positive earlier. There are 70 active cases in the district.

Of the seven new patients in Thrissur, four are women health workers in Chavakkad. Two came from Chennai and one from Saudi Arabia.

In neighbouring Palakkad, six cases were confirmed. Two of them came from Dubai and Saudi. Three returned from Mumbai, all natives of Ambalappara, while one came from Chennai.

Six cases were reported from Kasaragod too. All of them are returnees from abroad and other states. They include a 58-year-old man and his 19-year-old son who came from Maharashtra by train on June 7. They are natives of Padanna panchayat.

Of the three new cases in Kottayam, one came from abroad while others from Chennai and Mumbai. There are 46 cases in the district.

Malappuram reported three cases. One of them, a 30-year-old native of Iringattiri who served as a civil defence force volunteer with the Perinthalmanna fire force, contracted the disease through contact. Others came from Riyadh and Mumbai.

The state has reported 2,441 COVID-19 cases so far, out of which 1,101 persons have recovered. The remaining 1,340 patients are being treated in various hospitals.

District-wise break-up of Sunday's recoveries:

Palakkad - 27
Thrissur - 7
Malappuram - 5
Thiruvananthapuram - 3
Alappuzha - 3
Ernakulam - 3
Kottayam - 2
Idukki - 2
Kannur - 2
Wayanad - 1
Kasaragod – 1

A total of 2,42,767 people are under observation in various districts. Of these, 2,40,744 are under home-quarantine and 2,023 are in hospitals.

224 people were admitted in hospitals on Sunday.

As part of Sentinel Surveillance, 30,785 samples were collected from priority groups, such as health workers, guest workers, social contacts. Of them, 28,935 have returned negative.

Six more regions have been converted into hot spots.

New hot spots:

Kumily in Idukki district

Kanhangad, Karadka, and Pallikkara in Kasaragod

Muzhakkunnu and Peravoor in Kannur.

There are currently 122 hotspots in the state. Vorkady in Kasaragod district has been excluded from the list.