It was another day of over 10,000 COVID-19 cases for Karnataka on Friday as daily case additions stood at 10,913. There were 114 deaths.
Bengaluru Urban reported 5,009 cases and 57 of the 114 deaths, raising the toll in the district to 3,290.
The State carried out 1,09,980 tests, including 49,618 rapid antigen tests.
Kerala registered 9,250 new cases on Friday, and tested 68,321 samples. The test positivity rate showed a slight dip from 14.6% to 13.5%
Thursday’s sudden drop in daily cases by nearly half the previous day’s number had cut the test positivity rate from the 14.6% to 8.6% and was seen as a statistical aberration or technical glitch during data upload, experts said.
The chairperson of the State Government’s expert committee on COVID-19, B. Ekbal, clarified that the steep decline in cases and test positivity rate on Thursday was not an indication of the epidemic curve going down, but could be “Statistical Noise” (random irregularity in any real life data). Going by the current trends, the epidemic curve could plateau by October end, he said.
On Friday, 25 more deaths were added to the official list. Thiruvananthapuram accounted for seven deaths, while there were four each in Kollam, Ernakulam and Malappuram, two in Alapuzha and one each in Kozhikode, Kasaragod, Kottayam and Thrissur.
Telangana, on the other hand, recorded 1,891 coronavirus cases on Thursday. Seven more persons succumbed to the virus. Greater Hyderabad had the major share of new cases, at 285. Medchal-Malkajgiri and Rangareddy districts 195 and 175 new cases respectively, Nalgonda 128 and Karimnagar reported 97 cases.
Kumrambheem Asifabad district reported the lowest cases at 10, Narayanpet (13) and Bhupalpally (18).
Andhra Pradesh added 5,145 new infections and 31 deaths on Friday.
The death rate was the highest in Krishna at 1.57%, and Chittoor was next at 1.01%. In other districts, the death rate was less than 1%.
The number of tests conducted touched 64.20 lakh, including 70,521 more daily samples tested. While the overall positivity rate was 11.60%, the figure in the last day was 7.30%. New cases and deaths were as follows: West Godavari (862 & 1), Chittoor (757 & 4), East Godavari (738 & 3), Prakasam (486 & 5), Kadapa (352 & 1), Guntur (342 & 1), Nellore (310 & 3), Krishna (310 & 3), Anantapur (285 & 3), Kurnool (211 & 1), Vizianagaram (194 & 1), Visakhapatnam (159 & 4) and Srikakulam (139 & 1).
(With inputs from Hyderabad, Vijayawada and Thiruvananthapuram bureaus)
