The State reported 7,224 new cases of COVID-19 when 73,015 samples were tested in the past 24 hours.

The cumulative case 19 burden now stands at 50,42,082 cases.

The cumulative 19 case fatality now stands at 35,040 with the State adding 419 deaths to the official list of COVID deaths on Thursday. These include 47 deaths which occurred in the past few days and 372 deaths which have now been accepted as COVID deaths by the Government as per the new guidelines of the Centre and following the appeals filed by families.

The active case pool declined further to 69,625 patients on Thursday with 7,638 more recovering.

According to the Health Department, only 6.7 % of the active cases are currently admitted to hospitals or first-line/second-line treatment centres.

The current ICU occupancy of COVID patients in both public and private hospitals has dropped to 928, while the number of patients requiring ventilator support also dipped sharply to 374 on the day.

On Thursday, the number of patients newly admitted to hospitals with COVID was 345. Hospitalisations have been going down steadily and at present, 5,574 persons are being treated for moderate or severe infection in hospitals.

Among the districts, Thiruvananthapuram reported the highest number of new cases with 1,095 cases, followed by Ernakulam 922, Thrissur 724, Kozhikode 708, Kollam 694, Kottayam 560, Kannur 471, Pathanamthitta 448, Palakkad 335, Malappuram 333, Idukki 306, Wayanad 254, Alappuzha 250, and Kasaragod 124.