Bengaluru registered 1,048 new COVID-19 cases in a 24-hour period, taking its tally to 3.6 lakh, out of which 17,856 are active cases. While recoveries in the city rose to 3.38 lakh, with 881 discharged in 24 hours, the coronavirus claimed 14 lives, increasing Bengaluru's death toll to 4,042. This comes after the city registered less than 1,000 new cases for four days this week. Across Karnataka too, another trend reversed, with new COVID-19 cases at 1,849, exceeding the 1,800 recoveries in the same period across the state.
"With 1,849 fresh cases on Wednesday, the state's COVID-19 tally increased to 8.67 lakh including 25,169 active cases, while recoveries rose to 8.30 lakh with 1,800 discharges in the last 24 hours," a state health bulletin issued on Thursday said.
With 26 patients succumbing to the infection, the state's death toll rose to 11,604 till date, since the pandemic broke out on March 8. Fourteen out of the total 26 deaths were reported from Bengaluru urban, followed by Ballari, Dakshina Kannada, Dharwad and Tumakuru at two each, and Chikkaballapura, Kodagu, Mysuru and Vijayapura at one each. Most of the dead either had a history of Severe Acute Respiratory Infection (SARI) or Influenza-like illness (ILI), the state bulletin said.
Of the 598 patients in intensive care units (ICUs) across the state, 297 are in Bengaluru hospitals, followed by 31 in Mysuru and 28 in Tumakuru. The number of active containment zones in Bengaluru remained unchanged at two in the Mahadevapura zone, as per the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike's (BBMP) daily bulletin.
A total of over 98.59 lakh samples have been tested so far, out of which 1.18 lakh were tested on Thursday alone, and 25,101 among them were rapid antigen tests while 93.373 were done through the RT-PCR method. "The positivity rate was 1.56% and the case fatality rate 1.42% for the day," added the bulletin.
With IANS and PTI inputs