Thiruvananthapuram: 2,885 people tested positive for coronavirus and 1,944 patients were cured of COVID-19 in Kerala on Saturday, the Health department informed in a press statement.
Of the new cases, 2,640 contracted the disease through contact. The source of infection of 287 among them is unknown.
As many as 42 infected persons came from abroad while 137 came from other states.
Fifteen deaths due to COVID-19 were reported from the state on Saturday taking the state's official death toll to 425.
The state has reported 1,05,139 COVID-19 cases so far, out of which 75,848 persons recovered. The remaining 28,802 patients are being treated in various hospitals.
Fifty-five health workers also tested positive in the state on Saturday – 18 from Thiruvananthapuram, 10 from Ernakulam, seven from Kollam, six from Thrissur, five from Kannur, three each from Malappuram and Kozhikode, one each from Alappuzha, Pathanamthitta and Palakkad.
On Friday, Kerala reported more than 1 lakh COVID-19 cases crossing the milestone in a span of 225 days since the first case was reported.
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 doubled to 40K on August 14. On September 4, the numbers soared past 80K.
District-wise breakup of today's positive cases:
Thiruvananthapuram - 566 (contact cases – 541)
Malappuram - 310 (286)
Kozhikode - 286 (265)
Kollam - 265 (253)
Kannur - 207 (190)
Ernakulam - 188 (159)
Palakkad - 184 (157)
Thrissur - 172 (164)
Kottayam - 166 (159)
Alappuzha - 163 (148)
Kasaragod - 150 (149)
Pathanamthitta - 88 (64)
Idukki - 86 (57)
Wayanad - 54 (48)
District-wise breakup of recoveries:
Thiruvananthapuram – 393
Ernakulam – 233
Malappuram – 201
Kozhikode – 176
Alappuzha – 146
Kottayam – 138
Thrissur – 135
Kannur – 135
Kollam – 131
Kasaragod – 104
Pathanamthitta – 54
Palakkad – 39
Wayanad – 31
Idukki – 28
COVID deaths
With 15 more deaths on Saturday, the state's death toll is now 425.
The deceased have been identified as Francis Joseph (84) and Varghese (58) from Thrissur, Bhagavathy (78), Padmanabhan Potty (101), Ruhiya Beevi (76), Isha Beevi (72), Vijayalakshmi Amma (88) and James (76) from Thiruvananthapuram, Khadeesha Beevi (73), Muhammed (67) and Abdul Latheef (56) from Kozhikode, Hamsa (65) and Khadeeja (45) from Palakkad, M K Moideen (60) from Ernakulam, Kuttu (88) from Malappuram district.
Testing and quarantine
A total of 2,03,300 people are under observation in various districts. Of these, 1,81,123 are under home or institutional quarantine and 22,177 are in hospitals.
2,576 people were admitted in hospitals on Saturday.
So far, 20,99,549 samples (including the augmented sample) have been sent for testing.
In addition, as part of Sentinel Surveillance, 1,88,549 samples were collected from priority groups, such as health workers, guest workers, social contacts.
On Saturday, 19 more regions have been converted into hotspots and 10 have been excluded from the list taking the total number of hotspots to 603 in the state.
