It is not just Karnataka’s low fatality rate with respect to COVID-19 that is worth mentioning. With as many as 60 patients of the total 247 discharged till date, the patient recovery rate here, which is 23.8%, is higher than the national average of 10.4%.
Meanwhile, Kerala where 179 of the 375 cases have been discharged, has a remarkably high recovery rate of 47.7%.
At 2.6%, Karnataka’s COVID-19 fatality rate is lesser than the national average of 3.5%. Similarly, Karnataka’s positivity rate (the number of persons who tested positive out of the total tested) at 2.5% is even lesser than Kerala that has a positivity rate of 2.63%, said Primary and Secondary Education Minister Suresh Kumar, who is the COVID-19 spokesperson in Karnataka.
According to data from the State Health Department, the highest among the 60 discharged are from Bengaluru. While 27 of the 77 positive cases in Bengaluru have been discharged, 10 of the 48 in Mysuru and seven of the12 in Dakshina Kannada have been discharged. As many as 39 of the 60 discharged are those who had a foreign travel history.
The districts of Davangere and Kodagu that had reported three and one cases, respectively, have now come out of the list of COVID-19 affected districts after the discharge of all patients there.
The elderly have been severely hit and all the six COVID-19 deaths in the State are those aged above 60. However, on a positive note, nine persons aged above 60 have recovered and gone home.
The 46-year-old person, who was the first positive case in the State reported on March 9, is also the first person to have recovered and discharged. Almost all the 60 persons discharged have recovered within a span of 13 to 14 days.
Those who have recovered and won the COVID-19 battle in the State include a 10-month-old baby in Dakshina Kannada, six persons aged between 50 and 60, 44 persons aged between 10 and 50.
The first positive person from the pharma company in Nanjangud, Mysuru — that has now become a cluster hotspot with 37 confirmed cases — has also been discharged. Subsequently, six others have also been discharged. Health officials are still scrambling to find out the source of infection here.