Kerala, which has been reporting more than a hundred new cases of COVID-19 everyday in recent weeks, has on Saturday reported the highest number on a single day - 195 new cases. There are now 1,939 active cases in the state with Palakkad and Malappuram having the highest number of patients -- 260 and 218 respectively.
There are 180 active patients in Kollam, and more than 150 each in Pathanamthitta, Alappuzha, Ernakulam and Kannur. The lowest number of active patients is in Wayanad where there are 39 people under treatment now.
Out of the 195 new cases on Saturday, 180 are of people who have come to the state in recent days from other states or from outside the country. The remaining 15 have got it through contact.
More than a hundred people have recovered from the disease on Saturday. So far 2,108 people have recovered from COVID-19 since the first cases got reported in the state in January 2020. There have been 23 deaths of COVID-19 patients in the state so far.
As on Saturday evening, 1,67,978 people are under observation for the disease, most of them in home or institutional quarantine. The others - 2,463 people -- are in hospitals. While Malappuram has 26,987 people under observation, Palakkad has only 10,330.
Meanwhile, testing has also been increased. In the last 24 hours, 6,166 samples were tested. Apart from the sentinel surveillance (on 44,129 samples), so far, 2,15,243 samples have been tested in routine, augmented, Truenat and other procedures. The sentinel surveillance on priority groups – people more likely to have a higher number of social interactions as health workers and migrant labourers – gave negative results on 42,411 samples.
A new hotspot has been added to Palakkad district, while four others have been removed from containment zones. There are now 111 hotspots in all, across the state.