Steady rise in new COVID-19 cases

45% rise in infection in the week from December 31 to January 6

A slow but steady rise in new COVID-19 cases, including a marginal increase in the hospitalisation (5%) and ICU admissions (8%) is seen in the State now, in comparison to the previous week, even as many clinicians maintained that most of the patients they were seeing were mild cases.

Public health experts maintained cautious optimism that given the high background vaccination rate in the State, hospitalisations would not surge. Yet they warned that there was no room for complacency and appealed to the people to stay away from crowded places and to wear a good quality and well-fitted mask to prevent themselves from getting infected.

The State reported 5,296 new cases of COVID-19 on Friday when 64,577 samples were tested in the past 24 hours. The test positivity rate has risen to 8.2%.

The State’s cumulative case burden, ever since the pandemic began, now stands at 52,68,064 cases. The State’s active case pool is now seen rising steadily since the past one week and now has 27,859 patients. A total of 2,404 persons were reported to have recovered from the disease on Friday.

However, according to the Health department, only 7.8% of the active cases are currently admitted in hospitals or field hospitals such as COVID first line/second line treatment centres

There was an increase in new cases by 45% (7,348 cases) in the week from December 31-January 6, in comparison to the previous week. The average active cases were 20,707 during this period, with an average of around 2.1% only admitted in oxygen beds and 2.1% in ICUs.

Current ICU occupancy in both public and private hospitals has dropped to 418, while the number of patients requiring ventilator support remained more or less unchanged at 145 on Friday

The number of patients newly admitted to hospitals rose to 240. Hospitalisations are beginning to show a rising trend, with 2,434 persons being treated for moderate or severe COVID in hospitals.

The official cumulative case fatality now stands at 49,305 with the State adding 189 deaths to the official list of COVID deaths. This includes 35 deaths which occurred in the past few days and 154 deaths which have now been accepted as COVID deaths by the government as per the new guidelines of the Centre and following the appeals filed by families. Till now, a total of 18,696 deaths have been newly added to the State’s official list.

Among districts, Thiruvananthapuram reported the highest number of new cases with 1,116 cases, Ernakulam 1,086, Kozhikode 551, Thrissur 437, Kollam 302, Kottayam 289, Kannur 289, Pathanamthitta 261, Alappuzha 223, Malappuram 210, Palakkad 201, Idukki 142, Wayanad 118 and Kasaragod 71.

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