The toll of people dying from COVID-19 recorded in four southern States stood at 28, with Karnataka recording 12 deaths on Wednesday and Kerala adding 10 fatalities from the past few days.
Kerala reported 2,456 new cases on Wednesday when 56,740 samples were tested in 24 hours, taking the State’s cumulative cases in the pandemic to 11,09,908 cases.
The test positivity rate (TPR), remaining at below 4% for the past few days rose to 4.33% on Wednesday.
The addition of 10 new deaths to the official fatalities list on Wednesday raised the toll till date to 4,527 in Kerala.
Thrissur reported three deaths, Kollam and Malappuram two each, while one death each was reported from Idukki, Kozhikode, and Kannur.
The number of critically ill patients in ICUs came down to 452, with 129 requiring ventilator assistance.
Of Wednesday’s 2,456 new cases, 2,164 were locally acquired infections. This included infections in 18 healthcare workers. In 105 cases, the Health Department has reported a history of travel to other States.
Kozhikode district reported the maximum of 333 new cases, Thiruvananthapuram 300, Kannur 295, Ernakulam 245, Thrissur 195, Kottayam 191, Malappuram 173, Kollam 153, Pathanamthitta 117, Kasaragod 103, Palakkad 101, Alappuzha 94, Idukki 86, and Wayanad 70 cases.
Telangana’s count of new cases on Tuesday was 431, the highest in a day this year.
On Tuesday, 70,280 people were tested and results of 745 were awaited. Two more patients succumbed, taking the toll to 1,676.
The new cases included 111 from Greater Hyderabad, 37 from Medchal-Malkajgiri, 31 from Rangareddy, 21 each from Jagtial and Mancherial, and 19 from Nizamabad. Only one person tested positive in Jayashankar Bhupalapally.
So far, 97,89,113 samples were tested and 3,04,298 cases recorded. The total included 3,352 active cases while 2,99,270 recovered.
Cinematography Minister Talasani Srinivas Yadav said the government had no intention to down shutters on cinemas.
Andhra Pradesh reported four COVID-19 deaths and 585 new infections on Wednesday morning. It was the highest daily toll in two months and the highest single-day incidence in 100 days.
At 1.67%, the TPR of 35,066 samples was also the highest in the past three and a half months.
The four new deaths were reported from Chittoor, Guntur, Kurnool and Visakhapatnam districts.
Chittoor also reported the highest single-day tally of 128 cases among the districts, followed by Guntur (99), Visakhapatnam (81), Krishna (63), East Godavari (42), Anantapur (36), Kurnool (35), Nellore (23), Srikakulam (22), West Godavari (20), Prakasam (16), Vizianagaram (12) and Kadapa (8).
Chittoor also has the highest number of active cases with 544 patients under treatment.
In Karnataka, cases shot up on Wednesday by 2,298. Of these, 1,398 were from Bengaluru Urban. With this the total number of cases stood at 9,75,955.
There were 12 deaths, raising the toll to 12,461. In all 1,08,013 tests were conducted in 24 hours, including 1,01,488 RT-PCR tests.
The TPR stood at 2.12%, and Case Fatality Rate (CFR) touched 0.52%.
From 5,824 on March 1, active cases shot up to 16,886 on Wednesday. Over 68% (11,520) of total active cases were from Bengaluru Urban alone. This district had 4,092 active cases on March 1.
The number of active cases in the State rose from 97,815 on September 12, 2020 to 1,12,783 on October 3. After that the State has been seeing a consistent decline.
As on December 31, active cases dropped to 11,271, and further to 6,029 by January 31 and to 5,804 by February 28.
As many as 14,41,176 senior citizens were vaccinated in the State since March 1, besides 4,05,433 persons above the age of 45 with comorbidities.
On Wednesday, 1,12,105 senior citizens and 37,355 people above 45 years with comorbidities took the vaccination. Cumulatively, Bengaluru Urban has recorded the highest numbers, 2,91,771 and 59,897, respectively.
Also, 5,37,868 healthcare workers and 2,13,180 frontline workers had taken the first dose and 3,28,732 healthcare workers the second dose.
(With inputs from Hyderabad, Vijayawada and Bengaluru bureaus)