Karnataka sees biggest single-day spike with 248 new Covid-19 cases

This biggest single-day spike of cases takes the total Covid-19 positive cases in the state to 2,781 of which 1,837 are active cases and 894 people have been discharged.

With 248 new Covid-19 positive cases being registered on Friday, Karnataka again witnessed its biggest single-day spike in coronavirus cases. Interestingly, of the 248 new cases, 227 have a history of inter-state travel.

On Thursday, the state government had appealed to the civil aviation ministry to reduce the number of incoming flights into the state – from coronavirus hotspots like Maharashtra, Gujarat, Tamil Nadu, Rajasthan so as to ease the pressure on the institutional quarantine mechanism. (PTI PHOTO.)

On Thursday, the state government had appealed to the union civil aviation ministry to reduce the number of incoming flights into the state – especially from coronavirus hotspots like Maharashtra, Gujarat, Tamil Nadu, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh - so as to ease the pressure on the institutional quarantine mechanism in the state.

This biggest single-day spike of cases takes the total Covid-19 positive cases in the state to 2,781 of which 1,837 are active cases and 894 people have been discharged. On Friday, a 50-year-old woman from Chikkaballapura who had tested positive for Covid-19 passed away at a designated hospital in Bangalore, bringing the total number of deaths due to the virus, in the state to 48.

A health and family welfare department official who did not want to be identified – as he is not authorized to speak to the media—said, “Returnees from Maharashtra constitute nearly 85% of the new cases apart from a few others from Gujarat and Rajasthan. Local transmission is very low amounting to almost zero. This is why we requested the Centre to reduce incoming flights to the state and barred even road traffic from coming in from some of the neighbouring hotspots.”

What has been a greater concern for the government has been that it is interior districts like Mandya, Yadgiri, Kalburgi, Hassan and Raichur which are seeing the majority of new cases. “The health infrastructure in those districts is not as robust as those in say Bangalore, Mysore or even a Dakshin Kannada which is the cause of worry as, if there is a further sharp increase then there might be a tremendous strain on our resources there,” the official quoted above added.