THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: After a lull, positive signs are emerging as the trend of recoveries exceeding new cases in daily Covid updates continues. Also giving signs that the epidemic curve is slowly falling, a weekly analytic data released by the health department which considered the situation from October 18 to 24 showed that the case per million and test positivity rate (TPR) are on a declining trend.
The state on Tuesday had 7,015 recoveries and 5,457 new cases. The daily TPR stood at 11.81 per cent on Tuesday whereas it was 12.20 on Monday.
“It will be premature to say that the Covid curve is flattening in the state. If this trend continues there is hope. But the risks of another fresh pandemic wave are increasing as ever especially when the northern parts of the country will soon enter into the winter season. The looming threat of ‘twindemic’ - the possibility of contracting both influenza and Covid-19 - should have to be considered with utmost seriousness,” said an official of the health department.
According to the official, with travel restrictions not in place and asymptomatic nature of the infection, the state should take extra precaution considering its elderly and comorbid populations.At the same time, the weekly data show that though there are signs to cheer about, the drop in doubling time, which is used to track the rate at which the outbreak is progressing, is something to be concerned about.It turned out that during the third week (October 12-18) the doubling time was 36.6 and in the fourth week (Oct 18-24) it fell to 32.4.
Meanwhile, a declining trend was registered in the case per million across districts and the state average, which fell from 1,766 in the third week of the month to 1,497 in the fourth week. The TPR also had a similar trend. Malappuram which registered a TPR of 31.6 per cent in the third week bettered its position to 20.6 per cent in the fourth week. The only marginal increase in TPR was recorded in Kollam, Pathanamthitta and Alappuzha. Of the new cases reported on Tuesday, 4,702 were contact cases, 607 were cases with unknown sources of infection, 88 were returnees and 60 were health workers. The deaths that were confirmed as due to Covid-19 on the day were 24.