30 districts showing rising trend in number of Covid-19 cases for two weeks, most in south

NEW DELHI: Thirty districts in the country are showing a continued rise in the number of coronavirus cases for the last two weeks, of which 10 are in Kerala, seven in Andhra Pradesh, three in Karnataka and one in Tamil Nadu, the Centre said on Wednesday.

Joint Secretary in the Health Ministry Lav Agarwal said Bengaluru (Urban) has recorded 1,49,241 cases over the last one week, followed by Chennai, which has recorded 38,379 cases.

He said in Kerala, Kozhikode, Kottayam, Ernakulam, Thrissur, Malappuram, Alappuzha, Palakkad, Thiruvananthapuram, Kannur and Kollam districts have recorded a continued rise in the number of cases for the last two weeks.

Kerala reported the highest single-day spike of 41,953 coronavirus cases on Wednesday.

It had recorded 37,000 cases on Tuesday.

East Godavari, Chittoor, Srikakulam, Guntur, Visakhapatnam, Anantpur and Kurnool districts of Andhra Pradesh have also recorded a rise in the number of cases in the said period, Agarwal told a press briefing here.

Besides Bengaluru (Urban), Mysuru and Tumakuru districts of Karnataka, Solapur and Satara districts of Maharashtra have recorded a high number of cases over the last two weeks, he said.

Scientists at the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology had on Tuesday said the B.1.617 variant of the coronavirus is fast replacing the N440K variant in south India.

In the north, Gurugram and Faridabad districts in Haryana and Dehradun district in Uttarakhand have recorded a spike in the number of cases over the last two weeks, Agarwal said.

Indore and Bhopal in Madhya Pradesh have also been showing a rising trend in the number of cases, he added.

"We are working with the states on how to control this infection," Agarwal said.