kochi as political campaigns as part of the assembly elections reaching its zenith ernakulam has started witnessing rise in covid19 casesthe district on thursday recorded 327 positive cases while the number of new cases reported on wednesday was 316 it was 283 on tuesdayaccording to health officials ernakulam is likely to experience another covid wave once the election gets overofficials added that the rise in cases was on expected lines and they were equipped to meet any emergency situation the hospital sector both the government and private have all the infrastructure facilities required the officials addedhealth workers in ernakulam have already noticed rise in covid cases in the last five days and they expect that the next two weeks are crucial going by the current situation as no restrictions are in place to prevent the spread of covidwhirlwind political campaigns are undergoing in the district currently 250 patients are undergoing treatment at government sector we can manage even if the cases rise to 1000day if any surge occurs we will reopen those places which were closed when the caseload declined these places are still with the government government hospitals in tripunithura palluruthy vengola ramamangalam malipuram are equipped with beds with oxygen supply around 8000 tests are being conducted daily and more than 50 of these are rtpcr said national health mission nhm district programme officer dr mathew numpelithere are limitations in implementing covid protocols due to election campaign and holidays ahead we need to increase testing but the problem we face is that no one is coming forward to get tested but tests will come down in the coming days ahead due to holidays and election number of primary contacts in many new patients is less people are not ready to reveal contacts to avoid quarantine test positivity rate tpr of ernakulam revolves around 25 to 35 for the past three weeks said a health officialwhen the cases rise fatalities will also rise eventuallythough the government claims that fatality rate of kerala is less when compared to other states actually it is not we should compare ourselves with our data and fatality rate has increased the fatalities declared in ernakulam comes to 481 till wednesday and more number of covid deaths is yet to be declared actually three times higher than the declared fatalities happened in the district same is the situation in the state said the official