With over 2.08 lakh people recovering since October 1, Karnataka’s total recoveries breached the seven lakh mark on Saturday. With 7,153 patients getting discharged in the last 24 hours, the total recoveries touched 7,00737.
The number of recoveries outnumbered the number of new cases for the 10th consecutive day on Saturday.
Recoveries that crossed the one lakh mark on August 11 shot up considerably since then. A total of 4,46,111 people have beaten the infection from September 1 onwards and over 63.6% of the total recoveries have happened since September.
The recovery rate that was just about 50.73% till August 6, now stands at 87.7%. The national average is 89.8% as on Saturday. Recovery rate in at least 21 districts in the State is higher than the national average.
Recovery rate
The State’s recovery rate rose after the State tweaked its discharge policy in August. While in the initial months, patients were being discharged only after two negative reports within 48 hours, the State changed its policy that allowed a patient’s discharge after 10 days if he/she does not have any symptoms for three consecutive days before discharge.
Meanwhile continuing the declining trend, the State on Saturday saw a further dip in cases with 4,471 new cases. It was on August 3 last when the number of new cases were 4,752. The test positivity rate (TPR) for the day reduced to 3.97%, which is a good sign.
While the total number of cases touched 7,98,378, the toll rose to 10,873 with 52 new deaths. This is apart from 19 non-COVID-19 deaths. While 15 districts reported zero deaths, only two districts reported more than five deaths on Saturday. The Case Fatality Rate (CFR) for the day stood at 1.16%.
The number of active cases too reduced in the last few days and as on Saturday, active cases came down to 86,749. Of these, 935 patients are being monitored in the ICUs.
Bengaluru Urban reported 2,251 cases taking the tally to 3,23,305. With 26 of the 52 deaths from Bengaluru, the toll in this district rose to 3,714. Active cases in Bengaluru reduced to 55,983.
As many as 1,12.545 tests were conducted in the last 24 hours, including 90,564 rapid antigen tests. With this the total number of tests rose to 72,81,0990.
Why decline?
Attributing the decline in numbers to higher testing, Munish Moudgil, who heads the State COVID-19 War Room, said the State was in the third phase of linear growth since July wherein roughly a fixed number of cases add daily.
“COVID-19 seems to follow three phases of growth followed by 4th phase of reduction. In the initial phase of exponential growth the cases double every fixed days. In the second phase of polynomial growth cases grow slower than exponential but more than linear. The third phase of linear growth sees roughly a fixed number of cases adding daily. For many days since July we were in the third phase,” he explained.
“Now, the third phase is followed by the fourth phase of reduction provided adequate testing is done and other measures are in place. Due to diligent and ramped up testing and control on other parameters affecting COVID-19, we are seeing a reduction in cases,” he said.
“The cases will reduce and stabilise at a daily lower number provided testing remains the same and citizens continue to observe SMS - sanitisation, masking and social distancing,” he said.