Thiruvananthapuram, June 18 (PTI): Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan on Fridaysaid COVID-19 cases in the State have decreased by 42 per cent but asked the people to continue exercising caution as "we are now facing a highly contagious delta variant of the virus."

Vijayan told reporters here after the daily COVID-19 evaluation meet that the third wave can be prevented "if we all are vigilant as a community".

"We should continue to exercise caution as during the lockdown phase. Strict precautions should be taken as we are now facing a highly contagious delta variant of the virus. There is also a possibility that the third wave may be due to the emergence of the COVID-19 virus, which is more genetically modified than the delta virus," he said.

He said the government is making the necessary preparations to deal with any situation. The Chief Minister said there was a 15 per cent decline in the test positivity rate as compared to last week and that the average test positivity rate (TPR) for the last three days is 11.5 per cent. "Malappuram district has the highest TPR of 13.8 per cent while Kottayam district has the lowest at 8.8 per cent. Alappuzha, Kannur and Kozhikode districts have a TPR less than 10 per cent and in the remaining 10 districts, it ranges from 10 to 13.80 per cent," he said. The State today reported 11,361 new COVID-19 cases from 1,11,124 sample tests in the last 24 hours.

A total of deaths were confirmed as due to COVID-19 and the related death toll is now 11,833.

At the same time, 12,147 patients have recovered from the disease and at present, there are 1,07,682 people under treatment in the State. The Chief Minister said about 40 per cent of the people in the State have been vaccinated with the first dose. "We will speed up the vaccination as per the availability of the vaccine. At the same time, we must be careful to avoid congestion at vaccine centres. They should not become centres of disease transmission. The authorities and the people must act responsibly in this regard," he said. Vijayan said so far 73 cases of black fungus were reported in the State and 50 of them are still under treatment while eight were cured and 15 have lost their lives. "The government hospitals currently have 3,040 ICU beds. Of these, 1,137 beds are being used for the treatment of COVID-19 patients and 736 beds for non-COVID patients. About 61.6 per cent of the ICU beds in government hospitals are now occupied. Of the 7,468 ICU beds in private hospitals, 1,091 are used to treat COVID-19 patients," he said. Vijayan said paediatric intensive care facilities are being strengthened to ensure expert treatment of children in the event of a third wave.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)