Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan on Tuesday said his government has decided to lift the night curfew and withdraw the Sunday lockdown. The decision was taken in today's COVID-19 review meeting, Vijayan said. Moreover, the Kerala government has also decided to begin higher educational institutions from October 4.
"In the COVID19 review meeting held today, it has been decided to lift the night curfew and withdraw Sunday lockdown," Vijayan said. "In Higher Educational institutions, classes for final year, undergraduate & postgraduate students will begin from October 4. Details regarding the opening of educational institutions are being worked out. Decision on the opening of schools will be taken later," he added.
Meanwhile, after recording 30,000 or more daily cases for several days, Kerala is seeing a gradual decrease in the fresh number of cases since last week and on Tuesday it reported 25,772 new COVID-19 infections pushing the caseload to 42,53,298.
On September 3, the state had reported 29,322 cases after reporting over 30,000 cases for several days and since then the numbers have gradually declined.
With 189 deaths today, the total fatalities till date have reached 21,820, a state government release said.
The test positivity rate (TPR) has also declined after it reached nearly 20 per cent several days ago.
On Tuesday, the TPR was found to be 15.87 per cent after testing 1,62,428 samples in the last 24 hours, according to the release. With this, 3,26,70,564 samples have been tested till now.
The bulletin also said that since Monday, 27,320 people have recovered from the infection taking the total recoveries to 39,93,877 and the number of active cases to 2,37,045.
Among the 14 districts of the state, Ernakulam recorded the highest with 3,194 cases followed by Malappuram (2,952), Kozhikode (2,669), Thrissur (2,557), Kollam (2,548), Palakkad (2,332), Kottayam (1,814), Thiruvananthapuram (1,686), Kannur (1,649), Alappuzha (1,435), Pathanamthitta (1,016) and Idukki (925).
Of the new cases,125 were health workers, 133 from outside the state and 24,253 infected through contact with the source of the contact not being clear in 1,261 cases.
There are currently 6,18,684 people under surveillance in various districts. Of these, 5,85,749 are in home or institutional quarantine and 32,935 in hospitals.
(With PTI inputs)
