The ongoing lockdown imposed in Kerala amid coronavirus spread has been extended by a week and will now be in place till May 23, CM Pinarayi Vijayan said. The decision was taken in view of the high COVID-19 positivity rate, he said. ‘Triple lockdown’ will be imposed in Thiruvananthapuram, Ernakulam, Thrissur and Malappuram where the rate is high, he added.
Triple lockdown will be imposed in Thiruvananthapuram, Ernakulam, Thrissur and Malappuram, where the test positivity rate is high: Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan #COVID19
— ANI (@ANI) May 14, 2021
On May 6, the Kerala government had imposed a complete lockdown in the state from May 8 to 16. Issuing an order, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan had allowed essential services in the state during this lockdown period.
Earlier, CM Pinarayi Vijayan had said that a decision on extension of lockdown would be taken after assessing the situation by the weekend. However, it was learnt that the administrative machinery was gearing up for continued restrictions.
The development comes at a time when Kerala on Thursday logged 39,955 fresh COVID-19 cases, taking the overall tally to 20,20,834, while 97 deaths pushed the toll to 6,150. As many as 33,733 people were cured of the infection, taking the total recoveries to 16,05,471.
A total of 4,38,913 people are currently being treated for virus infection, according to a government press release. In the last 24 hours, 1,39,656 samples were tested and the Test Positivity Rate (TPR) was 28.61 per cent.
Malappuram district accounted for the highest number of cases today–5,044, followed by Ernakulam 5,026 and Thiruvananthapuram 4,050. Four districts reported over 3,000 cases.
