Amid rising COVID-19 cases, Kerala govt mulls imposing statewide complete lockdown

Amid the rising number of COVID-19 cases in Kerala, the Pinarayi Vijayan-led government is mulling imposing a statewide complete lockdown. A decision in this regard is likely to be taken during the special Cabinet meeting on July 27. Already, the state government has imposed a lockdown in some places such as Thiruvananthapuram city, the Aluva cluster in Ernakulam and coastal areas. While the state Cabinet met earlier in the day to discuss the issues, the Kerala CM is expected to take suggestions from opposition leaders at an all-party meeting on the COVID-19 crisis scheduled on Friday.

Vijayan is reportedly discussing the pros and cons of re-imposing the lockdown with medical experts. For the first time, Kerala registered more than 1000 cases in a day, propelling the state's COVID-19 tally on Wednesday to 15,032. A total of 1038 persons tested positive for the novel coronavirus. Among the 8,818 active cases in Kerala, 53 are in the ICU and 9 patients are on ventilator support. However, the state has a very low fatality rate, with only 45 COVID-19 deaths being recorded so far. Meanwhile, the Kerala Cabinet has also decided to cancel the Assembly Session scheduled to be convened on July 27, for the passage of the Finance Bill. 

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The novel coronavirus crisis in India

Currently, there are 12,38,635 novel coronavirus cases out of which 7,82,607 patients have been discharged while 29,861 fatalities have been reported. The recoveries in a single day continued to rise significantly for the second time in a row. In the last 24 hours, 29,557 patients were cured and discharged, taking the country's recovery rate to 63.18%. The number of recovered cases outnumber active cases by 3,56,439. At present, there are 4,26,167 active COVID-19 cases in India. Additionally, India's case fatality rate stands at 2.41%, which is one of the lowest in the world.

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