Kerala’s COVID-19 case graph, which had dipped with a slump in testing changed course on Wednesday, registering 8,790 new cases from 66,980 samples.
Epidemiologists said that the State’s weekly growth rate, at 10%-15% two weeks ago, came down to less than 5% during October 18–25 and the active case pool stabilised at around 95,000. At the current growth rate it could take weeks for the active case load to crosses a lakh, they said.
The test positivity rate on Wednesday was 13.12%.
With 27 fresh deaths from October 16 to 26 being added to the official list, the State’s COVID-19 toll stood at 1,403 deaths. Thrissur accounted for 10 of these deaths, Thiruvananthapuram five, Ernakulam four, Palakkad and Alapuzha two each while Malappuram, Kozhikode, Wayanad and Kollam reported one death each.
Ernakulam district reported the highest number of cases at 1,250, Kozhikode 1,149, Thrissur 1,018, Kollam 935, Alapuzha 790, Thiruvananthapuram 785, Kottayam 594, Malappuram 548, Kannur 506, Palakkad 449, Pathanamthitta 260, Kasaragod 203, Wayanad 188 and Idukki 115.
Cases in Telangana were back in a familiar range, with 1,481 people testing positive on Tuesday, with 40,081 people being tested. Four more COVID-19 patients died.
Of the 1,481 new cases, 279 were from Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation region, 138 from Medchal-Malkajgiri, 111 from Rangareddy, 82 each from Khammam and Nalgonda, and 79 each from Bhadradri-Kothagudem and Karimnagar. No case was registered in Wanaparthy and just four were recorded in Narayanpet.
Andhra Pradesh reported less than 3,000 new cases on Wednesday, for the fourth consecutive day. Also, the State recorded 18 new deaths.
In the past day, 77,028 samples were tested and their positivity rate was 3.83%, while the overall positivity rate of 77.77 lakh samples tested so far remained 10.48%.
The new cases and deaths in individual districts were: West Godavari (492 and 3), Krishna (457 and 3), Guntur (421 and 3), East Godavari (417 and 2), Chittoor (315 and 2), Kadapa (193 and 0), Anantapur (192 and 3), Visakhapatnam (114 and 1), Prakasam (99 and 1), Nellore (76 and 0), Srikakulam (74 and 0), Vizianagaram (67 and 0) and Kurnool (32 and 0).
Karnataka on Wednesday reported 3,146 cases taking the total to 8,12,784. Bengaluru Urban reported 1,612 cases, taking the district’s tally to 3,30,862. The State’s test positivity rate for the day reduced to 3.65%.
As many as 7,384 persons were discharged on Wednesday taking the total number of recoveries to 7,33,558.
Of the remaining 68,161 active cases, 939 patients were being monitored in ICUs.
After a dip in the number of tests since Monday, as many as 86,154 tests were conducted. With this the total number of tests rose to 76,00,348.
(With inputs from Thiruvananthapuram, Hyderabad, Vijayawada and Bengaluru bureaus)
