Thiruvananthapuram, April 24 : The Congress-led opposition in Kerala on Saturday asked both the authorities and the media to ensure that no one should spread panic among the people regarding surge in Covid cases. This comes after they announced complete support to the Kerala government as the state witnesses an unprecedented surge. Leader of Opposition Ramesh Chennithala told the media that like in the first wave, the opposition is with the state government and is extending all the support in its activities to help reduce the spread. "What needs to be done is none should make any attempt to spread a sense of fear when the cases surge. We request that an admission protocol for Covid patients be put up so as to reduce the load of patients in the hospitals and through this, only those who really need a hospital admission be brought to the hospital," said Chennithala. On Friday, 28,447 turned Covid positive, an all time high in the state after 1,30,617 samples was send for testing in the past 24 hours. Across the state there were 1,78,983 presently positive people, of which in the past one week the tally touched one lakh. Ernakulam district with a record 29,708 active cases is now has the highest number of cases. With regards to the vaccine policy of the Centre, Chennithala said it was most unfortunate that there has been a differential pricing in the vaccines, when it should have been given free. "In the recent budget speech of the State Finance Minister Thomas Issac, he had mentioned that vaccines would be given free and this means there is an allocation that has been made. The state government should open a vaccine call centre to facilitate for answering all the queries of people," said Chennithala. "The authorities should see whether more vaccine centres could be opened and also if it could be given at home, especially where there were senior citizens. "There has been a complaint that tribal and Scheduled Castes hamlets are being ignored when it came to vaccination. There have been complaints private hospitals are charging high and there should be an immediate intervention to check this," said Chennithala. He also asked the state government to see if it could supply oxygen cylinders to places like Delhi, where there is a serious shortage. /IANS