K’taka Covid toll crosses 25k with 626 new deaths

Bengaluru Karnataka on Sunday recorded 626 fresh Covid-19 fatalities, taking the overall toll beyond the 25,000 mark indicating the severity of the second wave of infections in the southern state

Bengaluru Karnataka on Sunday recorded 626 fresh Covid-19 fatalities, taking the overall toll beyond the 25,000 mark indicating the severity of the second wave of infections in the southern state.

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While the toll jumped to 25,282 across the state, the positivity rate stood at 2.40%, according to the bulletin of the state health department.

Bengaluru accounted for 362 fatalities while Bengaluru rural recorded 30 deaths.

Despite a dip in daily caseload, fatalities have increased over the last few days, which experts said was bound to happen as there would be a time lag between infection and death.

“Deaths come 14 days after the infections are reported. So the deaths you are seeing now are patients from early May when we were at the peak. When infections come down, deaths will be high,” Dr. V. Ravi, neurovirologist and member of Karnataka’s technical advisory committee (TAC) told Hindustan Times in a recent interaction.

Karnataka, particularly its capital Bengaluru, has seen a decline in the number of daily caseloads over the last one week. The state reported 25,979 new infections, including 7,494 in Bengaluru. The total number of active cases reduced to 472,986 across Karnataka and 255,842 in Bengaluru. The positivity rate also saw a decline and stood at 20.76%.

“Many positives from today’s Covid numbers: Large blue diamond recoveries (35k) continue to outnumber new cases (25k), Large blue diamond new cases fall to 25k after a long time. Large blue diamond positivity rate falls to 20%, Large blue diamond daily testing continues to be robust at 1,25,000,” Dr K Sudhakar, Karnataka’s minister for health, family welfare and medical education said in a post on Twitter.

However, the health crisis continues to deteriorate in several districts of Karnataka as the surge moves towards rural regions of the state.

There were 18 deaths in Ballari, 11 in Hassan, 15 in Kalaburagi, 12 in Koppala, 13 each in Mandya, Shivamogga and Tumakuru, 22 in Mysuru, 17 in Uttara Kannada, according to the health bulletin.

Karnataka reported 195,463 new infections in the last one week till 5 pm on Saturday, according to data from the state Covid-19 war room. The recovery rate is at 78.83%, according to government data.

However, the positivity rate across the state has increased, data shows.

Belagvi, the border district, had a positivity rate of 44.55% while Ballari, Uttara Kannada, Mysuru, Hassan, Tumakuru, Dharwad, Koppal and Chamarajanagar reported 37.30%, 37.08%, 36.53%, 32.89%, 32.63%, 30.94%, 30.17% and 30.17% respectively.

The positivity rate in Karnataka (till 5 pm on Saturday) was 23.61% and 18.84% in Bengaluru.