Thiruvananthapuram, May 6 (IANS): Covid cases continue to surge in Kerala on Thursday, touching a record high of 42,464 cases after 1,55,632 samples were tested, even as the state government announced a total lockdown from Saturday till next Sunday.

A statement issued here by state Health Minister K.K. Shailaja also said that the active cases stood at 3,90,906.

All these figures, including the test positivity rate of 27.28 per cent, are the highest ever since the pandemic broke out last year.

The customary daily briefing by Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan surprisingly was not held.

The only solace in the day was 27,152 people were cured taking the total cured to 13,89,515.

The day also saw the highest number of deaths being recorded on a single day, at 63, taking the total death toll to 5,628.

In a related development, a few public crematoriums also found that all the booking slots were getting filled quickly.

In the Thiruvananthapuram public crematorium, there were no slots before Saturday.

"We can do only 24 cremations in a day and in the past few days all the slots for the next day are being filled on the previous day itself," said an official.

At Palakkad also, of the 15 deaths accounted at the crematorium, 11 were due to Covid.

The situation at Kozhikode was also no different as while on an average, there were five deaths which was handled at the crematorium, on Tuesday, it went up to 17.

Meanwhile Ernakulam district continued to have the highest number of daily cases and also the total number of cases when on Thursday, 6,506 new cases took the tally to 61,845.

District Collector S. Suhas, however, assured that things are under control and people can know the availability of beds checking the link and at the moment, there are no shortages.

Kozhikode district saw 5,700 new cases taking the total active cases to 52,600.

Meanwhile with the lockdown coming into force from Saturday, the Southern Railway on Thursday decided to cancel 37 trains until May 31.