Comments
Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan said that the Covid situation is more or less under control in the State, which is what prompted the government to go ahead with reopening of schools. Primary and secondary schools as also colleges will open in phases from November 1 onwards.
The test positivity ratio (TPR) on Wednesday grew at 16.45 per cent as 19,675 new cases were identified when 1,19,594 samples were tested. The TPR at this level is unconscionably high but has shown a tendency to stabilise in the high teens, against projections of much higher numbers.
R-value falls below 1
The stabilising tendency is supported by latest assessment by the Institute of Mathematical Sciences, Chennai, which said that the R-value had come down in the State along with Maharashtra. These have been the two States saddled with most cases even as they subsided elsewhere.
For the country as a whole, the R-value, or Covid reproductive number, had dropped from 1.17 at August-end to 0.92 in mid-September. This had signalled that the spread of infection had slowed down, according to researchers led by Sitabhra Sinha at the Chennai Institute.
High toll trend
The only outlier Covid number continues to be that associated with deaths reported on a daily basis, which came in at 142 on Wednesday. The comparable figure for the previous day was even higher 214. The cumulative toll so far during the pandemic has crossed 24,000 to 24,039 as on date.
The active case pool stands at 1,61,026 which, though by far the highest in the country, has seen a steady decline along with hospital admissions at 23,373. Neither the high number of daily new cases nor the TPR is reflected in hospital admissions, the Chief Minister said.
Vaccination milestone
Vaccination crossed another milestone on Wednesday with more than one crore people receiving both the doses. More than 90 per cent (2,41,91,036 persons) has received the first dose while 1,01,68,405 (38.07 per cent) have been administered the second dose.
Only 24 lakh eligible persons are left to receive the first dose, the Chief Minister said, adding that those in the 65+ group left unvaccinated for some reason must get their shot at the earliest.
Comments
COMMENT NOW
Comments
Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments.
We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of TheHindu Businessline and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.