Thiruvananthapuram: As Kerala still grapples with COVID-19 even as the disease is abating nationally, the test positivity rate for the disease has dipped suddenly in the recent days after the local authorities started including several unreported negative lab results in the daily reports on a government directive.
The test positivity rate which was 10% came down to an average of 7% in the past few days. However, there is not much change in the average number of infected cases being reported daily.
The state health department had recently directed the district medical authorities to include unreported test results too. Several such test results couldn't be updated on time owing to the increased workload on lab employees these days.
The COVID-19 testing labs of the government are working to their full capacity at the moment.
It is not practical to increase the number of daily tests in view of the additional workload owing to COVID-19 vaccination, lab employees say.
Under these circumstances, the district health authorities were directed to mandatorily report the negative cases too which had not been uploaded earlier. The health workers were not able to upload the complete data on a daily basis from the government centres where a high number of testing were taking place. The negative results were kept aside for uploading later as a matter of convenience.
The Centre had earlier reprimanded the state for less number of testing for the infection. Taking cue the chief minister too had announced a month ago that the number of daily tests would be increased to 1 lakh.
6,075 fresh cases on Sunday
As many as 6,075 cases of COVID-19 were reported in the state on Sunday. The state also reported 19 deaths the same day. With this, the total fatalities due to the virus have gone up to 3,867 in the state.
On Sunday, 65,517 samples were tested and the test positivity rate was 9.27%. One more person who returned from the United Kingdom also tested positive for the disease.
In all 5,948 persons have recovered from the infection on Sunday.
Kollam district reported the highest number of COVID cases at 824.
