Karnataka sees biggest single-day Covid spike at 10k

BENGALURU: The  state saw a record surge in Covid cases on Monday, crossing the 10,000 mark, with Bengaluru, too, recording the highest number of positive cases so far. While the state saw 10,453 cases, Bengaluru’s tally stood at 4,868. Karnataka also recorded its highest number of active cases at 1,07,737, standing second only to Maharashtra, which has 2,65,033 active cases. However, government officials and health experts said that the high number of cases is “not a cause for concern”, attributing it to the record 87,475 tests conducted on Monday.

Health and Family Welfare Department Commissioner Pankaj Kumar Pandey said that the high number of positive cases was due to high number of tests. “We should not worry about the numbers. We need to focus on testing more, tracing the positive cases and isolating them to break the chain,” he added. Prof Giridhar Babu, head of Lifecourse Epidemiology, Public Health Foundation India (PHFI), agreed with Pandey that the high numbers are not a cause of concern.

“Only if we test more will we be able to find more cases. Right now, as asymptomatic cases are high, we need to continue testing more people to trace asymptomatic ones,” Babu said. A cause of worry will be if there is an increased number of deaths on a daily basis, he said. The mortality rate as on Monday was 1.48 per cent, and it has seen a steady decline in the last few days.

Meeting today to decide on safety campaigns

Testing  is a factor for increased number of cases, but people too are taking it easy and not following Covid safety norms, experts said. Taking note of this, officials are holding a meeting on Wednesday with deputy commissioners of the worst-affected districts to ask them to strictly enforce safety norms. “Everyone is moving around freely without masks and social distancing.

Once we start enforcing the wearing of masks and maintaining social distancing, cases will automatically come down. We will start campaigns on this,” Pandey said. On Monday, the number of deaths were 136, taking the toll to 8,777. With 6,628 recoveries on the day, the total stands at 4,76,378. Interestingly, even as September is coming to an end, the state’s media bulletin shows some deaths from August. This shows that many cases were reported late and there is a possibility of fatalities being much higher.

NO MORE PUBLIC GATHERINGS IN K’TAKA With the state breaching the 10,000-mark in daily Covid cases on Tuesday, the government has banned religious and other public gatherings. “Despite awareness being created on the dangers of the virus, people are careless and have not been wearing masks. The government wants to come out with a stern rule to act against those violating social distancing and other norms,” Medical Education Minister Dr K Sudhakar said