Thiruvananthapuram, Aug 7 (IANS): Kerala's Covid tally crossed 30,000 on Thursday as the state saw a record high of 1,298 new cases, state Health Minister K.K. Shailaja said.

Of the total, currently 11,983 cases are active, she said in a statement.

Thiruvananthapuram district, which continues to lead the state in the daily tally, recorded 219 cases on Thursday.

As feared by the authorities, the total number of local infectees is rising every day, with 1,017 on Thursday's cases falling in this category, and here again, Thiruvananthapuram continued to lead with 210 cases.

Shailaja said there are 1,48,039 people under observation at various places which included 11,437 in hospitals. There are 511 hotspots in the state.

Meanwhile, slamming Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan for putting the blame on the opposition for the situation, Leader of Opposition Ramesh Chennithala said there is no reason to blame them for the flaws of handling the pandemic.

"Vijayan first blamed the health sector and after realising his folly, he changed that and now is blaming us... he says it is because of our protests that there was a spike and it's the most foolish statement that has come out. It is now evident that he was just trying to project Kerala has done a good job by resorting to a low number of tests, which was a big folly. He made fun of us when we suggested for a combination of mitigation method and containment method. We, the opposition, right from day one, cooperated with the government and now Vijayan has proved to be a disaster, he cannot escape by blaming us," said Chennithala.