Karnataka breached the 1,000-mark in a single day spike in COVID-19 cases with 1,033 new cases reported on Saturday. This is after a gap of 114 days as it was on September 9 last that the State reported 1,074 cases. Previously, before the second wave peaked it was on March 16 that the State had reported 1,135 cases.
This time, the surge has been rapid with nearly a five-fold rise in new cases since December 20. From 222 cases on December 20, the cases nearly doubled on December 24. While 566 cases were reported on December 29, the number touched 1,033 on Saturday (January 1) taking the total to 30,08,370.
Over 78% of the new cases are from Bengaluru Urban alone where 810 cases have been reported. While nine districts — Bagalokote, Davangere, Chikkaballapura, Gadag, Haveri, Koppal, Raichur, Ramanagaram, and Yadgiri — did not report any COVID-19 case, Dakshina Kannada, Mysuru, Mandya, Udupi, Belagavi and Chikkamagaluru reported cases in double-digits (less than 50).
As many as 354 persons were discharged on Saturday, taking the total recoveries to 29,60,615. The State now has 9,386 active patients of which nearly 84% (7,876) are from Bengaluru Urban.
With the five deaths, the State’s toll rose to 38,340. This is apart from 29 deaths of patients due to non-COVID-19 reasons.
While the positivity rate for the day touched 0.86%, the Case Fatality Rate (CFR) touched 0.48%. The State’s average test positivity rate (TPR) in the last seven days stood at 0.53%. Two districts — Kodagu and Bengaluru Urban — have reported a TPR that is above the State average with 1.11% and 0.93% respectively.
While Bidar, Haveri, Koppal and Raichur have recorded zero TPR in the last seven days, Yadgir, Bagalkote and Gadag have recorded 0.01% TPR each.
As many as 1,19,225 tests were conducted in the last 24 hours, including 97,127 RT-PCR tests. With this, the total number of tests rose to 5,65,87,422.