Kerala accounts for 68.59 percent of the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) cases reported in India last week, according to health secretary Rajesh Bhushan, who added that the state contributed 32,000 cases to India’s single-day figure of 43,263. Bhushan further warned that the country is currently in the midst of the second wave, which is far from done.
“43,263 reported in the past 24 hours, over 32,000 from Kerala. Almost 68% of the total cases in last week were from Kerala. We’re still witnessing the second surge, it’s not over,” Bhushan said at a media briefing.
In terms of fatalities, Kerala reported 181 deaths on Thursday against India’s single-day death toll of 338. However, to date, the highest number of fatalities has been recorded by Maharashtra.
The southern state’s latest jump in Covid-19 cases comes after a week-long decline in the daily tally of cases. An increase in the number of daily Covid-tests has led to a sudden spike in cases. A total of 1,71, 295 tests were conducted in the previous 24 hours, of which 30,196 turned out to be positive, bringing the test positivity rate (TPR) to 17.63%.
“It is natural that cases will go up once tests are increased. The state should have increased tests a couple of months back,” public health expert Dr. SS Lal told Hindustan Times.
The Kerala unit of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) alleged that more than half the tests conducted were antigen tests instead of reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) test, which was once considered to be the ‘gold standard’ of Covid-tests by the health ministry.
In cities like Delhi, which witnessed a brutal second wave, 70% of the total tests conducted to identify infected patients in the last five months were RT-PCR tests, according to government data.
