Owing to the rising COVID-19 cases in Kerala, the Kerala government has extended the lockdown till May 23. The state is currently under a 9-day complete shutdown and was to end on May 16 as part of its efforts to curb the Covid spread.

Addressing the media, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan said that triple lockdown will be imposed in four districts- Thiruvananthapuram, Ernakulam, Thrissur, and Malappuram where the test positivity rate continued to rise. He further added that the decision was taken as the positivity rate continued to remain high. It may be remembered that in April last year, the triple lockdown helped Kasargod overcome the crisis and check the coronavirus spread. Meanwhile, all restrictions now in place will continue in the rest of the districts.

On Friday, Kerala logged 34,694 fresh COVID-19 cases, taking the overall tally to 2,085,583. While 31,319 people were cured of the infection, 93 deaths pushed the toll to 6,243. This tally is the highest so far, and the test positivity rate stood at 29.75 percent.