The State on Saturday reported 3,014 new cases taking the total number of cases to 8,23,412. With this, the day’s Test Positivity Rate (TPR) reduced to 2.96%, for the first time after the pandemic peaked in July.
The TPR, which stood at an average of 3.5% in the last seven days, has been dipping since then. From 4.75% in the beginning of this week (October 26), the daily TPR fell to 3.47% on Friday and further reduced to 2.96% on Saturday. The State’s cumulative TPR is currently 10.41%.
From 6.76% on June 27, the State’s daily TPR saw a drastic jump to 11.2% in over a month’s time (on July 29). TPR hovered between 11% and 18% for a long time before it reduced to 13% in September. It further reduced in October and stood at 9.53 % on October 11. From then onwards, the TPR has been on a decline consistently.
TPR, which is a vital marker in assessing the spread of an outbreak, is the percentage of people who are found to be infected by the virus from those who are being tested. While cumulative positivity rate takes into account all the people tested so far, the daily rate is for those tested on a particular day.
Pointing out that the low TPR may be due to weekend effect, Giridhar R. Babu, member of the State’s COVID-19 Technical Advisory Committee (TAC) said, “We need to wait and check for further drop in seven-day averages. There needs to be a better testing strategy in districts other than Bengaluru so that their testing rates are similar to that of Bengaluru. This is to get a realistic sense of the decreasing TPR,” he said.
Decline in deaths too
The State has also been witnessing a decline in fatalities since the beginning of October. From 1.4% on October 29, the Case Fatality Rate (CFR) decreased to 0.92% on Saturday with 28 new deaths. With this, the toll rose to 11,168. This is apart from 19 non-COVID-19 deaths.
As many as 7,468 persons were discharged on Saturday taking the total number of recoveries to 7,57,208. Of the remaining 55,017 active cases, 956 patients are being monitored in ICUs.
Bengaluru Urban reported 1,621 cases taking the tally to 3,36,469. With 17 of the 28 deaths from Bengaluru, the toll in this district rose to 3,864. Active cases in Bengaluru reduced to 34,459.
As many as 1,01,556 tests were conducted in the last 24 hours, including 81,128 RT-PCR tests. With this, the total number of tests rose to 79,05,868.
