<p>Karnataka on Friday recorded close to 50,000 new Covid-19 cases with a positivity rate of a high 25.44%.</p>.<p>Experts noted that districts other than Bengaluru were now accounting for 45% of the cases, an indication of the infection spreading to villages and interiors of the state which had remained safe from the disease.</p>.<p>Of the 48,296 fresh cases and 217 deaths reported in the state on Friday, Bengaluru accounted for 26,756 cases and 93 deaths.</p>.<p>The state’s figures witnessed a steep rise from Thursday’s 35,024 cases and 19,637 cases reported in the state capital. While the state saw a 37.89% rise in infections in a single day with 13,272 cases, Bengaluru saw a 36.25% rise with 7,119 cases.</p>.<p>Prof Sashikumaar Ganesan, chairman, Department of Computational and Data Sciences, Indian institute of Science, said this is a ‘scary situation’ as the numbers are mimicking his model’s projections when no lockdown is enforced.</p>.<p>“The current active numbers are exceeding our model’s estimates by 39,010 cases without a lockdown. But then again, it has only been three days since the 14-day lockdown in Karnataka started. Many of these cases being reported now must be cases who got infected days before April 27 considering the incubation period. I think a 30-day lockdown should be enforced,” he said.</p>.<p>Epidemiologist Dr Giridhar Babu, who is also a member of the Technical Advisory Committee, said that the worst is yet to come and that the state will peak in mid-May. He espoused the test, track, isolate, treat mantra, albeit even more aggressively now.</p>.<p>“We are approaching the peak and this is definitely not because we increased testing from 1,75,816 to 1,89,793 tests on Friday. Even though we have tested 13,977 more samples, the infected will remain. The only difference is now they are being detected. So, we should ramp up our testing, even to two lakh tests per day. The more we test, the earlier we detect. This can stop the transmission.”</p>.<p>State nodal officer for Covid-19 testing Dr C N Manjunath was of the opinion that the tables had turned and the state capital that was previously bearing 75% of the new cases every day has been reduced to 55% and now the other half are being reported from districts.</p>.<p>“Mysuru has reported a record 3,500 cases. Infection has travelled from Bengaluru to other districts like Tumakuru (1,801 cases), Mandya (1,348 cases), and Ballari (1,282 cases). Considering that we did not see such a fast transmissibility in the previous wave, a significant number of cases can be attributed to a mutant virus, but lack of genomic surveillance data linking it to case surge is preventing us from making that conclusion,” he said.</p>
<p>Karnataka on Friday recorded close to 50,000 new Covid-19 cases with a positivity rate of a high 25.44%.</p>.<p>Experts noted that districts other than Bengaluru were now accounting for 45% of the cases, an indication of the infection spreading to villages and interiors of the state which had remained safe from the disease.</p>.<p>Of the 48,296 fresh cases and 217 deaths reported in the state on Friday, Bengaluru accounted for 26,756 cases and 93 deaths.</p>.<p>The state’s figures witnessed a steep rise from Thursday’s 35,024 cases and 19,637 cases reported in the state capital. While the state saw a 37.89% rise in infections in a single day with 13,272 cases, Bengaluru saw a 36.25% rise with 7,119 cases.</p>.<p>Prof Sashikumaar Ganesan, chairman, Department of Computational and Data Sciences, Indian institute of Science, said this is a ‘scary situation’ as the numbers are mimicking his model’s projections when no lockdown is enforced.</p>.<p>“The current active numbers are exceeding our model’s estimates by 39,010 cases without a lockdown. But then again, it has only been three days since the 14-day lockdown in Karnataka started. Many of these cases being reported now must be cases who got infected days before April 27 considering the incubation period. I think a 30-day lockdown should be enforced,” he said.</p>.<p>Epidemiologist Dr Giridhar Babu, who is also a member of the Technical Advisory Committee, said that the worst is yet to come and that the state will peak in mid-May. He espoused the test, track, isolate, treat mantra, albeit even more aggressively now.</p>.<p>“We are approaching the peak and this is definitely not because we increased testing from 1,75,816 to 1,89,793 tests on Friday. Even though we have tested 13,977 more samples, the infected will remain. The only difference is now they are being detected. So, we should ramp up our testing, even to two lakh tests per day. The more we test, the earlier we detect. This can stop the transmission.”</p>.<p>State nodal officer for Covid-19 testing Dr C N Manjunath was of the opinion that the tables had turned and the state capital that was previously bearing 75% of the new cases every day has been reduced to 55% and now the other half are being reported from districts.</p>.<p>“Mysuru has reported a record 3,500 cases. Infection has travelled from Bengaluru to other districts like Tumakuru (1,801 cases), Mandya (1,348 cases), and Ballari (1,282 cases). Considering that we did not see such a fast transmissibility in the previous wave, a significant number of cases can be attributed to a mutant virus, but lack of genomic surveillance data linking it to case surge is preventing us from making that conclusion,” he said.</p>
