An 87-year-old man who passed away in Thrissur on Sunday had COVID-19, it was confirmed on Wednesday. The samples were sent to the National Institute of Virology unit in Alappuzha for testing and the result came back on June 10, confirming the disease. This would mark the 18th COVID-19 death in Kerala.
On Wednesday, 65 people, including the deceased man in Thrissur, were reported to have got COVID-19, informed the office of Health Minister KK Shailaja. Among them, 59 have come to the state from other countries and states in the last few days. Five others got it through contact.
Results of 57 patients have come back negative, making the total number of recoveries in the state 905. There are now 1,238 people under treatment for COVID-19 in Kerala. Palakkad has the most number of active cases at 178, closely followed by Malappuram which has 176. Five new hotspots have been added, making the total number 163.
After the borders opened in the state, 2,07,194 people have reached through air, sea, rail and road. As part of the state's quarantine protocol, they are all in quarantine at home or in government institutions, or under treatment at hospitals. There are 2,10,592 people under observation now, with 2,08,748 of them in home or institutional quarantine. The rest are in hospitals.
As part of the increased testing, 4,689 samples were collected in the last 24 hours. So far, the state has tested samples of 98,304 people, and this includes the augmented samples of vulnerable categories like the elderly and pregnant women. At least 93,475 of the samples have tested negative. Apart from this, sentinel surveillance of health workers, migrant labourers, people who have more social interactions with others, is also being done, with 24,508 samples collected so far; 22,950 of these have returned negative. Including the 6,364 repeat samples, the state has tested 1,31,006 samples in total so far.