Kerala added 1,078 new cases to its rapidly swelling COVID-19 tally on Thursday, taking the State’s cumulative number to 16,110.
Cleaning drive: Sanitisation works in progress at the Kings George Hospital in Visakhapatnam after some PG medical students tested positive on July 23, 2020.
With active community transmission on in many parts, 845 of the new cases were locally acquired infections. No epidemiological link was known in 65 cases.
Health care workers were again shown to be vulnerable, with another 32 testing positive. The State recorded five deaths on Thursday, in Kozhikode, Ernakulam, Thiruvananthapuram, Kollam and Kannur, taking the State toll to 50.
With 432 recoveries, there were 9,458 patients in hospitals. Total recoveries stood at 6,596. Recent intensive testing in the community unearthed many positive cases. Samples tested by the State in 24 hours went up to 22,433.
Six districts – Thiruvananthapuram, Kollam, Alapuzha, Ernakulam, Malappuram and Palakkad – recorded the maximum disease transmission, with 65 % of positive cases in the past two weeks.
Half of the active cases in the last two weeks were from Thiruvananthapuram, Malappuram, Alapuzha and Ernakulam.
Thiruvananthapuram continued to top in the number of fresh cases, chalking up 222, of which 206 were locally acquired. The source of infection could not be pinpointed in 16 cases.
Andhra Pradesh reported 61 deaths and 7,998 new cases in 24 hours, its total death toll rising to 884 and case tally to 72,711 on Thursday.
On the other hand, 5,428 patients were discharged and recoveries stood at 37,555. The remaining 34,272 patients were under treatment, the Health Department said. For the first time, 58,052 samples were tested in a day, of which 32,434 were RT-PCR, TrueNat and NACO tests and 25,618 Rapid Antigen Tests. The positivity rate for tests in the past day was 14% and the overall positivity rate of 14.93 lakh samples 4.87%.
East Godavari reported 14 new deaths and seven deaths each were reported from Guntur and Kurnool. Srikakulam and Krishna reported six new deaths each, while Vizianagaram, Visakhapatnam reported five deaths each. Similarly, West Godavari, Chittoor and Prakasam had three deaths each and Anantapur and Kadapa one death each. East Godavari reported 1,391 new cases, Guntur 1,184, Anantapur 1,016 and Kurnool 904 cases.
Karnataka was badly hit with 5,030 new cases and 97 deaths on Thursday, setting a new record. The Health and Family Welfare department said there were 49,931 active cases and total positives stood at 80,863.
Of the 97 deaths, 48 were from Bengaluru Urban raising the total to 783. As many as 1,616 people had died in the State so far. Eight deaths were reported in Mysuru, seven in Dakshina Kannada, five in Ballari, four in Belagavi.
While Bengaluru Urban had 2,207 new cases, Bengaluru Rural reported 161.
In Telangana, 1,567 samples tested positive taking the total cases to 50,826. Nine more people died due to COVID-19, raising the death toll in the State to 447.
(With inputs from Vijayawada, Bengaluru and Hyderabad bureaus)
