Kerala’s see-saw battle with Covid-19 continued on Sunday as 7,631 new persons were diagnosed with the pandemic while the total number of patients under treatment for the disease touched 95,200. The number of fatalities were 22.
Malappuram with 1,399 patients topped the table and was followed by Kozhikode (976), Thrissur (862), Ernakulam (730) Thiruvananthapuram (685).Out of the 7,631 new patients diagnosed on Sunday, 6,685 contracted the pandemic through contact. 63 health workers too contracted Covid-19 through contact.
Testing remained low in the State despite experts asking the government to ramp it up to one lakh per day. On Sunday, 58,404 samples were tested while neighbouring Tamil Nadu 90, 286 samples.
Union Minister of Health Dr Harsh Vardhan lambasted the Kerala Government for its failure to sustain the preventive measures it had adopted during the initial phase of the pandemic. In his weekly interaction, the minister pointed put that the number of persons getting afflicted with Covid-19 due to local transmission were on the increase in Kerala.
Meanwhile, situation in Tamil Nadu is improving gradually as per the release issued by the directorate of health and preventive medicine. The number of new patients diagnosed on Sunday came down to 3,914 while the total number of patients in the State stood at 39,121.
The fatality rates too came down in the State. On Sunday, Covid-19 claimed 56 lives and this took the number of fatalities in the State till date to 10,642. An interesting development is the number of patients diagnosed in Chennai on Sunday. The 1,036 patients diagnosed in Chennai is considerably lower than that in Malappuram (1399) of Kerala.