BENGALURU: More than 1,000 cases were missing from the state media bulletin on Saturday even as the authorities maintained that Karnataka recorded 4,537 positive cases and 93 deaths for the day.

In Vijayapura district, a patient was reported with the Covid code P56075 and the next was supposed to be P56076. But it jumps to P56086, which means 10 patients are missing in between. There have been many such instances from other districts too. If all the missing numbers are added, the count would well go beyond 5,000.

However, Dr Kantinath Ainapure of the state surveillance unit said, “Initially, we were adding cases manually. But from July 8, we have been porting data from the ICMR portal. During the process, a lot of duplicate cases were placed in our database. The system generated P codes automatically for these cases. The gaps in today’s bulletin are because we have taken out the duplicates.” As per the state bulletin, the total tally stood at 59,652 positive cases. Bengaluru Urban reported 2,125 cases, and 49 deaths.

The discharges stood at 1,018, taking the total to 21,775. Medical Education Minister Dr K Sudhakar said, “The schools will remain closed as both the Centre and state government are committed to ensure children’s safety. We have got cases of young children less than 10 years being infected with Covid.” 
The state has conducted 9,315 rapid antigen tests over the last two days. The total number of RTPCR tests performed stood at 24,909, CBNAAT tests at 110 and TrueNat tests at 485.

“The state has 85 labs and 25 more will be added. We have conducted over 9 lakh tests,” said Dr Sudhakar.
A team of 16 doctors from the Health and Family Welfare Department will check if private hospitals have reserved beds for government-referred Covid patients as promised. The team will hold meetings with the hospitals on denying treatment to patients and will initiate action to shut down outpatient wards of such hospitals, said Additional Chief Secretary Jawaid Akhtar.