With Kerala fighting to contain massive Covid surge, neighbouring Tamil Nadu and Karnataka have put restrictions on people travelling from the state. Tamil Nadu has made the RT-PCR test mandatory for people coming from the state from 5 August and Karnataka said that only vaccinated people will be allowed to enter the state.
Recording 20,728 new infections on Sunday, Kerala witnessed its sixth consecutive day of more than 20,000 single-day cases in the state. Also, 56 people succumbed to their illness in the last 24 hours. It amounted to almost half of the country’s 41,0952 cases. Its test positivity rate (TPR) also remained high at 12.14 per cent while the national average is 2.34%. Active cases also rose to 1,67,379, more than one-third of the active cases of the country, statistics released by the state health ministry shows.
In the meantime, the state government is planning to redraw its strategies and health minister Veena George said that the next three weeks are crucial for the state. “The latest sero survey shows at least 50 per cent of the population is vulnerable. We have noticed the presence of new Delta variant in different parts of the state,” she said, as she urged people not to lower their guard at a critical juncture.
India, meanwhile, reported 41,831 fresh Covid-19 infections in the last 24 hours, as per the Union Health Ministry on Sunday. There are 4,10,952 active cases of Covid-19 in India. The active cases constitute 1.30 per cent of the total cases reported.
For the fifth straight day, India has recorded over 40,000 Covid-19 cases in the last 24 hours. Meanwhile, the daily positivity rate stands at 2.34 per cent. As many as 541 people have succumbed to the infection in the last 24 hours, taking the death toll due to the infection to 4,24,351.
So far, India has reported 3,08,20,521 recoveries and the recovery rate currently stands at 97.36 per cent. India has substantially ramped up its Covid-19 testing capacity wherein 46.82 crore tests have been conducted so far.