Two more people died due to COVID-19 in Telangana, and one in Karnataka, on Wednesday.
In Kerala, the COVID-19 case load spiked again on Wednesday, when 24 persons tested positive, all except one being imported cases of infection.
Briefing the media, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan said that while 12 of the new positive cases were persons who had returned from abroad, 11 had come from other parts of the country. One person in Kannur was believed to have contracted the disease through contact with known or unknown sources of infection.
Seven new cases were found in Palakkad, four in Malappuram, three in Kannur, two each in Pathanamthitta, Thiruvananthapuram and Thrissur, while one case each was reported from Kasaragod, Kozhikode, Ernakulam and Alappuzha.
Five persons had recovered from COVID-19.
Kerala had reported 666 COVID-19 cases in all, of which 161 were active. The total of recovered cases was 502. The government put 74,398 persons under surveillance, of whom, except for 533 who were in hospitals, the rest were in home or institutional quarantine.
The State had tested 48,543 samples, of which 46,961 have returned a negative result. In the sentinel surveillance, of 6,900 samples tested so far, 5,728 were negative. Mr. Vijayan said that given the manner in which the case load was going up, the State should brace for a serious situation.
From just 16 cases in hospitals on May 8, in two weeks, the number of patients undergoing COVID-19 treatment rose to 161, he said. The State anticipated this and containment strategies had been devised.
COVID-19 was a pandemic which spared no nation and there should be no discrimination against returning non-resident Keralites.
The Government, through the National Health Mission had created an additional 2,948 temporary posts in 21 categories, anticipating the need to strengthen COVID-19 containment activities. This was apart from the 3,770 such posts created earlier.
15 cases in Hyderabad
With two more people dying of the virus in Telangana on Wednesday, the COVID-19 toll in the State was 40.
Of the two fatalities, one was a 61-year-old man from Motinagar and another an 81-year-old man from Chandrayangutta.
Besides, 27 samples tested positive on Wednesday. Of these, 15 were from the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation area, and 12 were migrants from Jagtial and Jangaon districts. Two people were discharged.
A total of 1,661 cases had been reported in the State. While 608 were active cases, 1013 were discharged. Among migrants, 89 tested positive for the virus. With the easing of lockdown restrictions from Tuesday, more people were coming out of their homes, travelling to work and other places. Health officials expected a spike in coronavirus cases in the coming weeks.
Mumbai-returnees continued to test positive in Karnataka, with 51 of 67 new cases on Wednesday having a travel history to the city.
While the total number touched 1,462, one more person, with travel history, succumbed to the infection in a private hospital in Bengaluru, taking the death toll to 41. The 43-year-old male resident of Bengaluru with a history of hypertension and myocarditis had returned from Vellore in Tamil Nadu.
Primary and Secondary Education Minister, Suresh Kumar, said 52 of the 67 new cases were inter-State travellers. One was from Visakhapatnam, he said.
The Minister said of the 180 passengers of Rajdhani Express, who arrived in Bengaluru on Wednesday, 22 had symptoms and their swabs were sent for tests.
Andhra Pradesh registered 68 new COVID-19 cases on Wednesday, after testing 9,159 samples. The case tally rose to 2,560, including 153 from other States (Maharashtra 101; Gujarat 26; Odisha 10; Rajasthan 11; Tamil Nadu 3; and West Bengal and Karnataka one each). Active cases stood at 843, and the death toll at 53. The number of persons discharged from hospital is 1,664.
Of new cases, 10 were linked to the Koyambedu market (six in Chittoor district and four in Nellore).
(With inputs from Hyderabad, Bengaluru and Vijayawada bureaus)
