Kerala reports 13,550 new Covid cases, positivity rate 11%

Thiruvananthapuram, June 29 Even though the state is under graded lockdown, there seems to be no respite from Covid-19 in Kerala, which reported 13,550 new cases on Tuesday out of the 1,23,335 samples that were sent for testing in the past 24 hours.

Speaking to the media, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan said that the test positivity rate in the state presently stands at 11 per cent.

"There seems to be callousness on the part of the people and this will be dangerous. There are chances that there might be an increase in the number of cases and hence to ward of Covid, all of us have to ensure that we strictly follow all the Covid protocols, which include ensuring that no one breaks the quarantine rules. If someone is flouting the norm, he/she will be sent to quarantine homes and for this the local bodies will act tough," said Vijayan.

"The other way out is vaccination, and so far the state has received 1.38 crore doses. A total of 1.07 crore people have got the first dose, while 31 lakh have got both the doses. If we are able to get the vaccines without any problem, we will be able to vaccinate the entire state's population in three to four months," added Vijayan.

There are 99,174 active cases across the state at present, while 10,283 recoveries in the past 24 hours took the state's overall number of recoveries to 27,97,779.

With the test positivity rate continuing to hover around the 10 per cent mark or above, it has been decided to rework the graded lockdown norms and from Wednesday onward, tighter norms of lockdown will be put in place.

Those local bodies with a positivity rate of above 18 per cent will be classified under ‘D' category with strict lockdown norms. Likewise, ‘C' category local bodies will be those with a TPR of 12 to 18 per cent, ‘B' category will be those having a TPR of 6 to 12 per cent and those with a TPR of 6 per cent or less will be in the ‘A' category. This will be in force till next week.

Meanwhile, 104 Covid patients succumbed to the virus on Tuesday, taking the state's overall Covid death toll to 13,093.

"The mortal remains of those falling prey to the virus are presently not allowed to be brought home. However, keeping in mind the requests from the people, we have decided to allow the mortal remains to be taken home for one hour to perform all the rituals," Vijayan said.

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