Karnataka Covid wrap: Over 1,000 cases in a day for first time since December

Amid a spike in the number of Covid cases, Karnataka on Tuesday reported over 1,000 cases in a day for the first time since Christmas last year. As many as 1,135 more people contracted the infection in the last 24 hours, indicating a test positivity rate of 1.65 per cent.

Of these, Bengaluru Urban continued to top the list with 710 new cases and 329 discharges among 30 districts in the state.

Meanwhile, 68,469 samples were tested (including 6,485 Rapid Antigen Detection Tests) across the state. Other districts that reported the most cases on March 16 were Mysuru (58), Dakshina Kannada (50), Kalaburagi (46), and Bengaluru Rural (38).

The number of active cases across the state rose to 9,428, with 72.46 per cent of it in the capital city alone.

#Karnataka Mar 16 #Covid19 update: State reports over 1000 cases for first time in 2021.

New cases: 1135 (710 in #Bengaluru)
Discharges: 561 (329 in BLR)
People vaccinated: 82,038
Tests done: 68,469
Active cases: 9428 (6832 in BLR)
New deaths: 6 (3 in BLR) pic.twitter.com/7R8j9JJMgD

— Ralph Alex Arakal (@ralpharakal) March 16, 2021

Karnataka had previously reported over 1000 cases on December 25, 2020 when the positivity rate was at 1.01 per cent. Of 1005 new cases then, 578 were reported from Bengaluru.

Health Minister directs officials to enhance contact tracing

In the wake of a surge in Covid-19 cases in the state, Health and Medical Education Minister K Sudhakar Tuesday directed officials to enhance contact tracing and testing.

“Primary health centres are instructed to conduct at least 100 tests per day and 500 tests per day is the target for general hospitals. At least 20 primary and secondary contacts have to be traced for every infected person,” Sudhakar instructed.

He added that vaccination will also be increased, as per the inputs received from the CM’s meet with experts. “We are giving large advertisements from today to create awareness. Vaccination will be increased further. 15 lakh people have been vaccinated so far,” he said.