Karnataka adds 8,244 COVID-19 cases, testing level dips

A.P. reports continuing dip in positive cases; Telangana again cuts testing on Sunday; Kerala reports 2,540 new cases

Once again, Telangana’s test numbers for COVID-19 dropped on Sunday. While the normal is about 60,000 samples on weekdays, it dropped to about 60% on Sundays, starting from July 26.

On September 13, only 34,427 samples were tested and 1,417 were found to be positive. The death toll touched 974 with 13 more patients succumbing to the disease. Of the new cases, 264 were from Greater Hyderabad, 133 from Rangareddy, 108 from Karimnagar, 107 from Sangareddy and 75 from Siddipet. There were 30,532 active cases.

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In the 42 State government hospitals, 3,563 oxygen beds and 545 ICU beds were vacant on Sunday. In case of 203 private hospitals, 2,811 oxygen beds and 1,186 ICU beds were available.

Andhra Pradesh reported 7,956 new infections and 60 deaths on Monday. There was a continuous dip in new infections over the past five days and decrease in positivity rate for two weeks.

In the past day, 61,529 samples were tested with a positivity rate of 12.93%. The overall positivity rate was 12.34%.

With 9,764 new recoveries the recovery rate went up to 82.93% and so far 4,76,903 patients have recovered from the infection. Currently, 93,204 patients are being treated.

East Godavari reported the highest single-day tally of 1,412 infections besides four deaths. West Godavari reported 1,091 cases and four deaths. They were followed by Nellore (756 cases, 3 deaths), Chittoor (748, 9), Guntur (666, 2), Srikakulam (517, 4), Visakhapatnam (490, 5), Anantapur (483, 7), Vizianagaram (481, 4), Prakasam (444, 5), Kurnool (341, 5), Kadapa (326, 4) and Krishna (201, 4).

Chittoor’s tally crossed 50,000-mark and it became the fourth district to have seen more than it.

The district tallies are as follows: East Godavari (78,220), Kurnool (51,966), West Godavari (51,565), Chittoor (50,146), Anantapur (49,789), Guntur (46,004), Visakhapatnam (44,338), Nellore (44,130), Prakasam (36,886), Kadapa (36,491), Srikakulam(32,747), Vizianagaram (28,427), and Krishna (21,475).

Recovery rate in Kurnool and Anantapur was more than 90% and that of Vizianagaram and Prakasam was around 65%. Recovery rate in the remaining districts was between 80% and 89%.

New cases showed a dip in Kerala on Monday at 2,540 cases, in proportion to tests on Sunday, which were down to 22,279 samples.

Fifteen more deaths, from August and early September, were added to the State’s provisional list of COVID-19 fatalities on Monday. Two deaths had occurred as early as August 3 but were added to the official list only now. Three deaths each were reported from Thiruvananthapuram, Kollam, Palakkad, and Malappuram and one each from Kozhikode, Kasaragod, and Ernakulam. Malappuram reported 482 cases, Kozhikode 382, Thiruvananthapuram 332, Ernakulam 255, Kannur 232, Palakkad 175, Thrissur 161, Kollam 142, Kottayam 122, Alappuzha 107, Idukki 58, Kasaragod 56, Wayanad 20, and Pathanamthitta 16 cases.

Chief Minister, Pinarayi Vijayan said a genomic study in north Kerala done by CSIR Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology, showed virus strains in Kerala belonged to the A2a clade, marked by the D614G mutation, linked to possible higher infectivity potential.

Mr. Vijayan said that the government intended to repeat the genomic surveillance study using samples from other parts of the State.

COVID transmission is likely to go up in the State when all remaining restrictions are relaxed and the public transport system operates normally. Testing had been hiked in the State to as many as as 45,000 samples a day. The government would like this to go up to 50,000 samples.

He appealed to people to join the Health department’s COVID brigade, which includes medical and non-medical professionals as well as volunteers, as human resources requirement is going to be crucial in the coming months to manage the huge number of patients who might end up in COVID first-line treatment centres.

Karnataka added 8,244 new cases and 119 COVID-19-related deaths on Monday. With this, the total number of cases in the State stands at 4.67 lakh cases. Meanwhile, as many as 8,865 patients were discharged on Monday, taking the total number of discharges to 3.61 lakh. Out of the total 98,463 active cases in the State, as many as 800 patients are in intensive care units of different hospitals across the state.

The total number of deaths was 7,384.

The Health and Family Welfare department said 45,961 tests were conducted on Monday. This was a sharp decline from the previous day’s level of about 68,000. Of the 45,961 tests, 16,296 tests were rapid antigen tests.

(With inputs from Vijayawada, Thiruvananthapuram and Bengaluru bureaus)