Coronavirus | Kerala, Karnataka pin hopes on lockdown

With nearly 90,000 cases on Saturday, both States face big challenge; A.P. reports 96 deaths

Karnataka on Saturday reported 47,563 new cases of COVID-19 and 21,534 were from Bengaluru Urban, while there were 482 more deaths.

The State, with high incidence everyday, had 5,48,841 active patients. The test positivity rate (TPR) for the day stood at 30.28%.

The daily testing level stood at 1,57,027, including 1,46,586 RT-PCR tests.

Kerala’s COVID-19 worries persisted with 41,971 new cases recorded on Saturday from 1,48,546 samples, representing an average TPR of 28.25%. The State had 4,17,101 active cases.

A record number of 64 recent deaths were added to the State toll.

Kerala went into a nine-day lockdown on Saturday bringing normal life to a near standstill.

The deaths included 13 from Thrissur, 12 each from Pathanamthitta and Kannur, 11 from Ernakulam, 10 from Kollam, three from Wayanad, two from Alappuzha, and one from Kottayam. There were 30,262 hospitalised patients, 2,505 in ICUs.

Saturday saw 182 persons getting admitted to ICUs.

Ernakulam continued to have the highest number of active cases at 65,856, followed by Kozhikode (52,638), Malappuram (46,183), Thrissur (48,718) and Thiruvananthapuram (36,480).

Ernakulam district reported the highest number of new cases at 5,492.

Andhra Pradesh reported 96 deaths, the highest daily toll in eight and half months, and 20,065 new infections on Saturday. For 1,01,571 samples tested, the TPR was 19.75%.

West Godavari reported 14 new deaths, Visakhapatnam 12, Anantapur and Guntur 10 each, Guntur and East Godavari nine each, Kurnool and Nellore seven each, Chittoor six, Kadapa five, Krishna four and Srikakulam three.

Visakhapatnam and its neighbouring East Godavari reported 2,525 and 2,370 new infections respectively in the past day.

Active COVID-19 cases in Telangana were below the 70,000 mark for the first time in 12 days, even as 5,186 new cases and 38 deaths were reported as of Saturday evening.

The Public Health Department said fresh positive cases took total infections to 4,92,385 from March 2 last year. Fatalities went up to 2,704 after the first death reported on March 28 last year.

Active cases were at 68,462 on Saturday.

The bulletin indicated that the daily infection rate was dropping slowly as it stood at 7.5% on Saturday out of 69,148 samples tested. The High Court had been asking the State to increase test numbers further.

The Greater Hyderabad area, a major contributor of positive cases everyday, remained below the 1,000 mark for the second day after touching four-digits on April 22. On Saturday, 904 cases were reported from the GHMC area. Rangareddy district reported 399, Medchal-Malkajigiri 366, Nalgonda 317 and Warangal Urban reported 231.

(With inputs from Thiruvananthapuram, Vijayawada, Hyderabad bureaus)

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