Thiruvananthapuram, May 25 (IANS): The Covid test positivity rate (TPR) in Kerala continue to fall, touching 20.84 per cent on Tuesday, while 177 deaths were reported.

Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, in a statement, said 29,803 people turned Covid positive after 1,43,028 samples were tested in the past 24 hours.

"The day saw 33,397 people turn negative, taking the total cured in the state to 21,32,071 while 2,55,406 continue to be positive. The death toll has risen to 7,731," he said.

On Monday, Vijayan had said that experts had warned that the death toll will rise and so would be the load on hospitals with more people turning Covid positive will have to get admitted, while the TPR will fall as the peak in the second wave was over.

On Monday the average TPR in the past three days was 22.6 per cent and it has been falling for the past one week.

The state is on a lockdown from early this month while Malappuram district is under 'triple lockdown' and on Tuesday, reported 5,315 cases.

Across the state, there were 9,04,178 people under observation which included 38,740 at hospitals. There were 879 hotspots in the state.

State Health Minister Veena George said that the government's agenda is to see that the people in the state are vaccinated at the earliest and for that, all efforts are being made to get the vaccines.

"The state government is also ensuring that all the hospitals, both private and state-run, do have all the required infrastructure in terms of beds, ventilators and uninterrupted supply of oxygen," she said.