Health Minister of Kerala Veena George announced on Monday that the State diagnosed 5,297 new cases of Covid-19 from 51, 577 samples tested during the last 24 hours. As 78 persons succumbed to the pandemic during the last 24 hours, the death toll in the State reached 32, 049.
But what stands out in the release, according to senior Government doctors, is the fact that the intensity of the pandemic remained unabated. “What the Government has done is to being down the number of samples being tested on a daily basis. The truth is that the Test Positivity Rate in Kerala remains between 10 and 12 and this is not a positive development,” said the doctor who did not want his name to be quoted.
He pointed out that in neighboring Tamil Nadu a minimum of 1.23 lakh samples are tested every day to keep track of the pandemic. While government officials remained tight-lipped when asked about the reduced number of tests in Kerala, many doctors said the situation in the State continued to be grievous.