Thiruvananthapuram: 1,129 people tested positive for coronavirus and 752 patients were cured of COVID-19 in Kerala on Saturday, the Health department informed in a press statement.

Of the new cases recorded on Saturday, 880 contracted the disease through contact. The source of infection of 58 among them is unknown.

As many as 89 infected persons came from abroad while 114 came from other states.

The state has reported 24,742 COVID-19 cases so far, out of which 13,779 persons recovered. The remaining 10,862 patients are being treated in various hospitals.

District-wise breakup of today's positive cases:

Thiruvananthapuram - 259 (contact cases – 241)

Kasaragod - 153 (151)

Malappuram - 141 (83)

Kozhikode - 95 (80)

Pathanamthitta - 85 (61)

Thrissur - 76 (35)

Alappuzha - 67 (52)

Ernakulam - 59 (33)

Kottayam - 47 (38)

Palakkad - 47 (26)

Wayanad - 46 (44)

Kollam - 35 (27)

Idukki - 14 (7)

Kannur - 5 (2)

District-wise breakup of recoveries:

Thiruvananthapuram - 168

Alappuzha - 100

Pathanamthitta - 58

Kottayam - 57

Thrissur - 54

Kollam - 53

Kozhikode - 49

Palakkad - 42

Malappuram - 36

Ernakulam – 35

Kannur – 35

Idukki - 32

Kasaragod - 28

Wayanad – 5

COVID deaths

The department also confirmed eight COVID-19 related deaths on Saturday. The deceased were identified as Koyamu (82) of Kondotty in Malappuram district, Asharaf (52) of Aluva in Ernakulam, Sister Angel (81) of Ernakulam, Abdul Rahman (72) of Thrikkaripur in Kasaragod, Babu (62) of Nedumangadu in Thiruvananthapuram, Noushad (49) of Kozhikode, Asma Beevi (73) of Kollam and Chandran (59) of Irinjalakuda in Thrissur.

With this, state's official death toll rose to 81.

Twenty-four health workers also tested positive in the state on Saturday – 14 from Thiruvananthapuram, two from Kozhikode and one each from Kollam, Pathanamthitta Alappuzha, Kottayam, Ernakulam, Thrissur, Malappuram and Kannur.

Eleven KSE employees and five KLF employees in Thrissur, four INHS workers in Ernakulam are also among the infected.

The single-day case count had crossed 1000-mark four times before this with 1,167 cases on July 28, 1,103 cases on July 25, 1,078 on July 23 and 1,038 on Wednesday July 22. On Friday, 1,310 cases were reported, but this figure was a cumulative number of the day's added with the remaining from Thursday's that were left out due to a glitch in the ICMR website.

From when the first case was confirmed in the state on January 30, 2020, it took 168 days, or five-and-a-half months to reach the 10k-mark on July 16. However, it took only 11 more days to cross 20,000 cases.

Testing and quarantine

Of the 1,43,996 people under observation for suspected infection, 1,33,616 are in home or institutional quarantine and 10,380 hospitalised. As many as 1, 257 people were hospitalised since Friday.

In last 24 hours, 20,518 samples were tested. In total, 7,95,919 samples (including routine, airport surveillance, pooled sentinel, CBNAAT, TrueNAT, CLIA and antigen assay) were sent for testing. Of this, results of 5,971 samples are yet to be returned. Out of the 1,24,653 samples collected as part of sentinel surveillance, results of 1,842 samples are yet to be received, the release said.

Seventeen new places were designated as hotspots on Saturday, while 23 local self governments were excluded from the list. The state has 492 hotspots as of now.