Kerala State added 194 new covid deaths to the official toll on Friday, taking the cumulative fatalities to 8,257. On Friday, with 3,677 persons getting admitted to hospitals, a total of 39,110 patients were being treated for moderate or severe COVID in hospitals in the State. The state reported 22,318 new cases of COVID-19 on Friday when 1,36,068 samples were tested in the past 24 hours. The test positivity rate is on its way down and registered 16.4% on the day. The State’s active case pool is declining at a good pace for the past one week and with 26,670 recoveries being reported, the case pool is now 2,37,819. However, there is no let up in hospitalizations, daily hospital admissions or deaths due to COVID. In the Thiruvananthapuram district, the active case pool declined further to 16,750. Yet, hospitalizations are going up every day in the district and as of Friday, the district had 6,338 patients admitted to various hospitals. The hospital admissions on Friday alone numbered 519. Total ICU admissions of critically ill COVID patients in State in both public and private hospitals went up again on Friday and now stands at 3,972. More people had to be put on ventilator support on Friday and the number rose to 1,527. The cumulative case burden of the State now stands at 24,70,872 cases. Covid Containment Measures: Home Ministry repeats guidelinesDelhi govt announces unlocking of factories from May 31, construction work to restart Johnson & Johnson covid-19 Vaccine gets emergency approval by Mexico