A 65-year-old man, who had tested positive for the coronavirus disease (Covid-19), died on Friday in Kerala’s Kottayam, taking the southern state’s death toll to nine, officials said.
The man, who returned from the Middle-East recently, was an acute diabetic and was on ventilator support for the last two days, they added.
A man had died in the state capital of Thiruvananthapuram on Thursday. He had come from Rajasthan and had to go to Telangana but arrived in Kerala two days ago after he boarded a wrong train.
The number of Covid-19 cases in Kerala has gone up after the return of expatriates and people stranded in other parts of the country.
Kerala reported 84 fresh coronavirus cases on Thursday, in the highest spike till now, taking the tally to 1,088. Out of the 1,088 cases, 526 are active.
Out of 84 new cases 31 are expatriates, 48 came from other states and five people got the infection from others.
Experts have questioned the state’s low testing rate citing statistics.
While Kerala has tested only 60,685 samples in four months, its neighbour Karnataka had tested 2,28,914 people till May 27 and Andhra Pradesh 412,714.
Both states started reporting Covid-19 cases in the first week of March but in Kerala, the first case was reported in January last.
Critics say the state failed to capitalise on its early advantage.
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