Kerala increased COVID-19 testing by almost 25,000 tests on Thursday to test 84,007 samples in the past 24 hours, the highest number of tests done in a day so far during the pandemic.

New cases of COVID-19 reported on Thursday was 6,102, with the test positivity rate dropping to 7.26% .

The State’s cumulative burden rose to 9,50,811 cases.

The State has been reporting as many or more recoveries as new cases for the past several days and the active case pool which had been on the rise has since then dropped to less than 70,000 cases.

6,341 recoveries

With 6,341 patients reportedly recovering on Thursday, the active case pool came down further to 68,857 cases. The cumulative recoveries reported till date has risen to 8,77,889.

On Thursday, 17 more deaths were added to the official list of fatalities, taking the State’s toll ever since the pandemic began to 3,813 deaths. Thiruvananthapuram reported six deaths, Kollam, Thrissur, and Kozhikode two each, and Alappuzha, Ernakulam, Palakkad, Kannur, and Malappuram reported one each.

As on Thursday, official reports said the number of critically ill patients being treated in ICUs across the State is 805 with 233 of them requiring ventilator support.

Ernakulam tops

Among districts, Ernakulam again reported the maximum number of 833 cases, followed by Kozhikode 676, Kollam 651, Pathanamthitta 569, Alappuzha 559, Malappuram 489, Thrissur 481, Kottayam 450, Thiruvananthapuram 409, Kannur 287, Idukki 269, Palakkad 217, Wayanad 114, and Kasaragod 96 cases.