As the number of Covid-19 patients in the State showing no signs of any abatement, Kerala is being fortified from within as well as outside according to Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan.
The districts of Kozhikode and Malappuram have been brought under prohibitory orders for the next one week in view of the counting of assembly votes scheduled for Sunday and the surging cases of Covid-19.
Vijayan in his daily press briefing on Saturday evening said that 48 persons lost their lives and the number of new Covid-19 patients shot up to 35, 636 during the last 24 hours. The Test Positivity Ratio in the State stood at 24.33 per cent, said Vijayan.
The Chief Minister alleged that the Centre was not at all cooperating with the State in issuing the vaccines and this has forced the Kerala Government to call off the programme to vaccinate those between the 18-45 age group indefinitely.
“The Centre is showing total disregard to the relevant Supreme Court verdict and this has out us un trouble,” said the chief minister.
He disclosed that there were more than 3.23 lakh Covid patients in the State. Many Government run hospitals in Kerala has ran out of beds. The Taluk Hospital at Thiroorangadi was forced to send back patients who were brought to the hospital on Saturday as there were no beds.
There are persons like Rejith Kumar of Idukki who had opted out from getting admitted to the hospital taking a cue from Narayana Dabhalkar of
Nagpur. Kumar, a Samskar Bharati office -bearer is undergoing treatment in his own house in Kerala’s High Range region.
Kozhikode district diagnosed 5,554 new patients while Ernakulam district accounted for 5,002 new cases.
With 48 persons succumbing to the pandemic on Saturday, death toll reached 5,356 .
Kerala Private Hospitals Association on Saturday rejected the diktat by the department of health to unify the treatment costs with that of government hospitals.