Nearly six months after recording its first COVID-19 case, Karnataka breached the four lakh mark and hit 4,04,324 cases as 5,773 persons tested positive on Monday. Over 53% of this caseload was reported in August alone.

With 97,001 active cases, Karnataka is in third position among States after Maharashtra. Fuelled by a spike in cases in Bengaluru, the situation in the State took a turn for the worse from the beginning of July by breaching the 2,000 mark daily initially. It subsequently jumped to over 5,000 per day, and later to over 9,000 cases. But after crossing 9,000 in the last few days, the number of cases came down to 5,773 on Monday.

With 141 new deaths, the toll touched 6,534 on Monday. This is apart from 19 non-COVID-19 deaths. Since the beginning of July, COVID-19 has claimed 4,466 lives across Karnataka. The State’s Case Fatality Rate (CFR) now stands at 1.61%.

This month alone (from September 1 till date), the State has added 61,901 cases. On August 31, while the total number of cases stood at 3,42,423, Bengaluru Urban had recorded 1,29,125 cases. While Bengaluru Urban recorded 2,942 cases on Monday, Ballari and Mysuru saw 266 and 221 cases, respectively.

With as many as 8,015 people discharged, the total number of recoveries in the State touched 3,00,770. As many as 794 patients were being monitored in the ICUs of various hospitals as on Monday.

Steady rise since June

From 101 cases in March, the State witnessed a four-fold rise of cases in April, and subsequently a six-fold increase in May. From May to June, there was a five-fold rise, and then an eight-fold increase from June to July when the number of cases crossed one lakh and touched 1,08,873. Since then, the number of cases more than doubled and touched 2,18,308 in August, while fatalities rose to 3,388.

The number of positive cases in the State has been rising steadily since the beginning of June, and 80% of the total 10,118 positive cases reported as on June 24 were from June alone.

Karnataka recorded its first 1,000 cases on May 15, two months and six days after the first case was detected on March 9. Thereafter, the cases doubled to 2,000 on May 24. The case count crossed the 10,000 mark on June 24. After May 24, the doubling rate reduced to eight days and subsequently to an average of three days.