THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan on Friday informed Prime Minister Narendra Modi about the steps taken by the state government to mitigate effects of the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic and sought allocation of more vaccine doses.
Vijayan explained the COVID-19 situation in Kerala during a video conferencing held by the Prime Minister.
During the meeting, Vijayan said the delta variant was found in the state during the second wave which began in April and during that time, the test positivity rate reached almost 30 per cent.
"Currently, the test positivity rate has come down to 10.4 per cent. When compared to other states, the second wave started late in Kerala. We tried to delay the peak which helped the health sector," he said.
The Chief Minister said the state effectively followed the testing, quarantine and treatment protocol resulting in becoming the state with one of the lowest case mortality rates in the country.
"Even though other states have high mortality rates, we managed our case mortality rate at 0.48 per cent," he added.
Vijayan also urged allocation of more vaccine doses for the state.
He sought 60 lakh doses of vaccine for the months of July and August and said that a letter in this regard had already been sent to the Prime Minister on July 11.
"Till now, 1.17 crore people of the state received the first dose of vaccine while 44.18 lakh people received both the doses. The state has also arranged special vaccination drives at mental health centres, old age homes and forTribal communities, bed-ridden patients and the transgender community," he said.
The state logged 13,750 new COVID-19 cases and 130 deaths on Friday, taking the infection count to 31,30,833 and the death toll to 15,155.
State health minister Veena George said 1,30,390 samples were tested in the last 24 hours and the test positivity rate was 10.55 per cent.
Till now, 2,50,60,933 samples have been tested.
Among the districts, Kozhikode reported the highest number of cases--1,782, followed by Malappuram 1,763 and Thrissur 1,558.
"Out of those found infected on Friday, 63 reached the state from outside while 12,884 contracted the disease from their contact.
The source of infection of 725 are yet to be traced and 78 health workers are also among the infected," the minister said in a release.
Meanwhile, 10,697 persons recuperated from the disease, taking the total cured in the state to 29,93,242.
Currently, there are 1,21,944 persons under treatment.
There are 3,97,164 persons under observation in the state out of which 24,847 are in isolation wards of various hospitals.
There are 205 local self government bodies with test positivity rate of over 15 per cent.
Meanwhile, the state government has decided to ease the lockdown curbs on Sunday, Monday and Tuesday in view of Bakrid which falls on July 21.
The state government said July 18, 19 and 20 will see less restrictions allowing shops including textile, footwear, electronic, fancy and jewellery to remain open till 8 PM and this is applicable to A, B and C category local self government bodies.
The LSG bodies have been reclassified on the basis of the average (Test Positivity Rate (TPR) for the last seven days.
'A' category includes those LSGs with TPR less than 6 per cent while B category have LSGs with 6-12 per cent TPR.
'C' category will have LSGs with 12-18 per cent TPR and D category includes LSGs with TPR more than 18 per cent.