Kerala heaved a sigh of relief on Monday with new COVID cases dropping to 1,242 after staying above 1,900 for five days in a row.

In its daily update, the Health Ministry said that 1,238 recoveries were also recorded on the day.

The state also recorded 11 deaths on the day taking the official toll to 234.

Of the new cases, 1,081 contracted the virus through contact and the source of infection of 95 among them are yet to be traced.

Among the newly infected, 39 had come from abroad while 88 came from other states.

Thirty-four health workers tested positive. They include, 17 from Thiruvananthapuram, 6 from Ernakulam, 4 from Malappuram, 3 from Kozhikode, 2 from Kasaragod, and 1 each from Alappuzha and Palakkad districts.

With this, the total number of confirmed cases in the state rose to 59,504. Of this, 38,887 recovered so far. The remaining 20,323 patients are being treated in various hospitals.

Kerala's daily COVID-19 case count stayed above 1,900 for five days in a row since August 19, the date on which the daily case count crossed 2,000-mark for the first time. On Thursday, the number of new cases reported was 1,968. Meanwhile, 1,983 cases were reported on Friday, 2,172 on Saturday, and 1,908 on Sunday.

From January 30, 2020, when the first COVID-19 case was confirmed in the state, it took 168 days, or five-and-a-half months to reach the 10k-mark on July 16. However, it took only 12 more days to cross the 20,000 tally. The numbers soared past the 50k-mark in the next 22 days.

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

Thiruvananthapuram - 182 (contact cases: 158)
Malappuram - 169 (154)
Ernakulam - 165 (154)
Kasaragod - 118 (101)
Kollam - 112 (94)
Palakkad - 99 (71)
Kottayam - 89 (86)
Kozhikode - 81 (66)
Kannur - 76 (65)
Alappuzha - 60 (55)
Thrissur - 46 (42)
Wayanad - 20 (18)
Idukki - 19 (11)
Pathanamthitta - 6 (6)

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

Thiruvananthapuram - 170
Kollam - 53
Pathanamthitta - 31
Alappuzha - 150
Kottayam - 63
Idukki - 48
Ernakulam - 142
Thrissur - 62
Palakkad - 120
Malappuram - 116
Kozhikode - 130
Wayanad - 25
Kannur - 45
Kasaragod – 83

Testing and quarantine

There are currently 1,83,448 under observation across the state. Of them, 1,66,411 are under home/institution quarantine while 17,037 are in hospitals. 1,877 were admitted in hospitals on Monday.

In wake of the recent surge in cases, the government has ramped up testing. During the last 24 hours, 26,186 samples were tested. A total of 14,46,380 samples have been tested in the state so far. In addition, as part of Sentinel Surveillance, 1,65,443 samples were tested from priority groups.

Seventeen new regions have been designated as hotspots. There are currently 624 hotspots in the state.