Covid-19: Both Karnataka and Bengaluru see biggest daily highs in new cases

New Delhi: Bengaluru on Thursday reported 1,373 new Covid-19 cases, which is the city's biggest single-day jump so far.

The city's overall tally reached 13,882 while total number of active cases at the moment are 10,870.

With 606 more recoveries in the last 24 hours, the capital of Karnataka saw its total number of recoveries reach 2,834.

So far, there have been 177 virus-related deaths in the supposed technological capital of the country.

On Thursday, Karnataka too saw its biggest daily high in new coronavirus cases with 2,228 new cases getting detected in the last 24 hours. The state had reported over 2,000 new virus cases for the first time on 8 July.

The state's overall Covid-19 tally reached 31,105. 17 more virus-related deaths in the state in the last 24 hours took its death toll to 486.

The number of active Covid-19 cases in the state are 17,782. There have been 957 recoveries in the state in the last 24 hours, taking the total number of recoveries so far to 12,833.

Out of 17,782 active cases, 17,325 patients are in isolation at designated hospitals and are stable, while 457 are in ICU.

"Death rate in Karnataka is 1.49 per cent, while in Bengaluru is 1.28 per cent, and our target is to bring it below 1 per cent," Medical Education Minister K Sudhakar told reporters.

"The reason for spike in cases in Bengaluru and other places in recent days is because during the last four months of lockdown we had controlled it very well, but as we relaxed lockdown for economic activities we did not follow certain precautionary measures like distance among other things," he said.

The minister also conceded that there were lapses on part of the government also in terms of tracing and tracking.

"It has to be improved especially in Bengaluru and we are taking steps in this regard."

Among the 17 dead seven were from Dharwad, two each from Hassan, Kalaburagi, Mysuru, and one each from Raichur, Uttara Kannada, Tumakuru and Davangere.

The deceased include 13 men and 4 women.

The dead are all either with a history of Severe Acute Respiratory Infection (SARI) or Influenza-like illness (ILI).

Out of 2,228 fresh cases today, contacts of the majority of the cases are still under tracing.

Among the districts where the new cases were reported, Bengaluru Urban accounted for 1,373, followed by Dakshina Kannada (167), Kalaburagi (85) and Dharwad (75).

Bengaluru urban district tops the list of positive cases, with a total of 13,882 infections, followed by Kalaburagi (1,901) and Dakshina Kannada 1,701.

Among discharges Bengaluru urban tops the list with total 2,834, followed by Kalabuagi (1,392) and Udupi (1,206).

A total of 7,79,209 samples were tested so far, out of which 20,028 were tested on Thursday alone.

So far 7,28,887 samples have been reported as negative, and of them 17,568 were reported negative today.

Karnataka Chief Minister B.S. Yediyurappa on Thursday cautioned people that the COVID-19 pandemic will last many months and sought public support in the fight against the virus.

"Let us together control coronavirus.This is not a one or two days' affair. We may have to face the problem for many months," the Chief Minister told reporters after inspecting the Bangalore International Exhibition Centre on Tumakuru Road, which has been converted into a Covid-19 care centre with 10,100 beds and claimed to be the country's largest.

The Chief Minister appealed to the migrant labourers from Karnataka working in Bengaluru not to migrate to rural areas.

"There is no need to unnecessarily migrate from Bengaluru to villages.I request people not to migrate to the villages. It is necessary to prevent the spread of the disease in the villages," Yediyurappa said.

With inputs from agencies