Karnataka on Sunday registered its highest number of Covid-19 cases in 39 days as the state recorded 456 cases.
Coupled with 330 discharges on Sunday, the state’s active caseload also stood at 7,132 cases as of Sunday afternoon, which is higher than the 7,012 active cases of the day before. This increase represents the reversal of a 22-day decline in the active caseload.
With 2,499 cases having been recorded this past week, the state has also recorded 24.8% more cases this week compared to the 2,001 cases the week before. During this same period, Bengaluru Urban noted a 25% increase in cases, recording 1,362 cases this week, as opposed to 1,082 cases two weeks before.
The issue has prompted the Centre to notify several “districts of concern” where increases have been noted. In a letter sent to the state government on Saturday by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Rajesh Bhushan, IAS, Secretary, MoHFW, noted: “Karnataka has reported 8,073 new cases in the month ending December 3 (30 days). It is also important to note that Karnataka has reported a slight increase in weekly new cases to 20,272 cases (week ending December 3) from 1,664 cases (week ending November 26), along with an increase in weekly new deaths from 22 to 29 over the same period.”
The letter went on to note that Tumakuru district had seen a 152.17% increase in the number of new cases between November 19 and December 2, followed by Dharwad which had seen a 20.92% increase, followed by Bengaluru Urban (19.16%) and Mysuru (16.49%).
The letter advised the state Department of Health to control the spread of the infection and use the "ongoing strategy of Test-Track-Treat-Vaccinate-Covid Appropriate Behaviour to keep the situation under control."
On Sunday, the Health Minister announced that testing in Karnataka would be ramped up to over one lakh a day. The data shows that already the state conducted 7.05 lakh tests in the last seven days - which is 42% higher than 4.96 lakh tests conducted two weeks ago.
On Sunday, apart from 256 new cases recorded in Bengaluru Urban, the next highest numbers were 66 cases in Chikkamagaluru district and 20 in Dharwad district. Sunday’s Covd-19 bulletin also carried information on six new deaths, four of whom had perished in the last few days.
Child cases
Despite the rise in Covid-19 cases, the number of pre-teens infected with the virus was the smallest in at least four weeks - only 51 cases were recorded this week, compared to 106 a fortnight ago. However, the number of infected teens (10-19) rose this week with 391 cases recorded. In comparison, only 276 cases were recorded the week before.
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