The Covid situation in Kerala is taking a turn for the worse with the daily number of positive cases increasing and the state yesterday recorded its highest one-day tally with 1,569 cases, taking the total to 41,090.
Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan and seven of his Cabinet colleagues also went into self-isolation after Malappuram district collector K Gopalakrishnan turned Covid positive.
Gopalakrishnan was the co-ordinator when the ill-fated Air India Express flight crashed into a gorge on August 7 and the next day Vijayan and his Cabinet colleagues had reached the airport accident site, where Gopalakrishnan was also present.
In a statement issued here, state Health Minister K K Shailaja, who has also gone into isolation, said at present 14,094 people are Covid positive, while 26,996 have been cured of the disease.
“1,354 of those who turned positive are local infectees and Thiruvananthapuram district saw 310 positive patients. There are 1,55,025 people under observation in various places, which includes 12,734 people in hospitals. There are 555 hot spots in the state,” said Shailaja.
New cases were yesterday reported among the inmates of Thiruvananthapuram Central Jail with 164 of the 975 inmates found positive.
Meanwhile, the country’s Covid-19 tally crossed the 2.4mn mark yesterday with 64,553 new cases in 24 hours, while the toll climbed to 48,040 with 1,007 more fatalities, said the health ministry.
Out of the total 2,461,190 cases, recoveries have surged to 1,751,555 with a record 55,573 more people recuperating in the past 24 hours, taking the recovery rate to nearly 71.17%.
The actual caseload of the country is the active cases, which currently stands at 6,61,595.
Notably, the fatality rate, which is the proportion of people who die from the disease among individuals diagnosed, has dropped to 1.96%, the ministry said.
A health worker in personal protective equipment waits at a local health centre for the next person to be tested for the coronavirus disease, amid the spread of the disease, in the old quarters of Delhi yesterday.
