Thiruvananthapuram: Triggering panic, Kerala has recorded the highest ever single-day spike of 42,464 COVID cases on Thursday.

The test positivity rate was registered at 27.28 percent.

The death toll touched 5,628 with 62 new fatalities.

Ernakulam has been witnessing a steep rise in the daily cases consecutively. The district registered 6,506 fresh cases on Thursday.

The district-wise statistics of positive cases: Ernakulam- 6,506, Kozhikode- 5,700, Malappuram- 4,405, Thiruvananthapuram-3,969,Thrissur- 3,587, Alappuzha- 3,040, Palakkad-2,950, Kottayam- 2,865, Kollam- 2,513, Kannur- 2,418, Pathanamthitta-1,341, Kasaragod- 1,158, Wayanad- 1,056 and Idukki- 956.

1,55,632 samples were tested in the last 24 hours.

In total, 1,66,16,470 samples including routine sample, sentinel sample, CBNAAT, Truenat, POCT, PCR, RTLAMP, antigen were sent for the tests.

A person who returned from UK tested positive for Covid-19 in the last 24 hours. So far, 124 people including 115 UK returnees, 8 from South Africa and 1 from Brazil tested positive for the virus infection. 114 of them have recovered from the disease.

So far, 11 patients have been infected with the mutant virus strain.

265 of the new COVID patients were returned from outside the state. 39,496 people contracted the virus through contact. The infection source of 2579 patients remains unidentified.

The district-wise statistics of contact cases: Ernakulam- 6,411, Kozhikode- 5,578, Malappuram- 4,181, Thiruvananthapuram- 3,655, Thrissur- 3,556, Alappuzha- 3,029, Palakkad-1,263, Kottayam- 2,638, Kollam- ,2503, Kannur- 2,199, Pathanamthitta- 1,307, Kasaragod- 1,106, Wayanad- 1,025 and Idukki- 945.

124 health workers also tested positive for COVID. Among them, 39 were from Kannur, 20 from Kasaragod, 15 from Thrissur, 13 from Palakkad, 11 from Wayanad, 6 each from Pathanamthitta and Ernakulam, 5 from Thiruvananthapuram, 3 each from Kollam and Kozhikode and one each from Kottayam, Idukki and Malappuram.

Meanwhile, 27,152 recoveries were also reported in the state. The district-wise statistics of recoveries: Thiruvananthapuram- 2,389, Kollam- 2,035, Pathanamthitta- 903, Alappuzha- 1,923, Kottayam- 3,013, Idukki- 228, Ernakulam- 2,999, Thrissur- 1,519, Palakkad- 2,488, Malappuram- 3,205, Kozhikode- 3,996, Wayanad- 182, Kannur- 2,083 and Kasaragod- 189.

With this, the number of active cases touched 3,90,906 in the state. Till date, 13,89,515 people recovered from the disease.

8,18,411 people are currently under observation in the state. Out of this 7,88,529 are under home/institutional quarantine and 29,882 people are in hospitals. 3633 people were taken to hospitals on Thursday.

8 more places were added to the list of hotspots while no place was removed from the list. Currently, there are 723 hotspots in the state.

  covid