Karnataka on Thursday reported 14,378 new cases, highest so far for a single day, taking the total to 11,09,650. Of these, 10,497 are from Bengaluru Urban.
Last year during the first outbreak, the State had reported the highest single day spike of 10,947 cases on October 7. Bengaluru Urban’s last year’s record was 5,121 on October 8.
State Health Commissioner K.V. Trilok Chandra said the steep rise over the last two days also includes the reports of a backlog of samples that had piled up in the State’s laboratories during the weekend and Ugadi holidays.
The State’s COVID-19 Technical Advisory Committee (TAC) met on Thursday and examined the stricter restrictions being enforced in Maharashtra. The committee that later submitted a report to the Health and Medical Education Minister K. Sudhakar is learnt to have recommended that the State should consider imposing Maharashtra-like restrictions.
Sources said the TAC reviewed Maharashtra’s Standard Operating Protocols (SOPs) on imposing 144 section and restrictions with regard to checking the spread of infection in restaurants, pubs, cinema halls and measures to be taken for crowd management. The report is likely to be taken up for discussion in the all-party meeting convened by Chief Minister B.S. Yediyurappa on April 18.
Shortage of beds
On Thursday, several hospitals across the State reported zero availability of beds resulting in patients scrambling to get hospitalised. Sources in 108 helpline that handles the central bed allotment system said they were flooded with requests for bed allotment and were helpless.
C.N. Manjunath, nodal officer for labs and testing in the State’s COVID-19 task force, said it has become difficult for the government to match the infrastructure requirement with the caseload.
“If we look at the exponential rise in numbers, there is hardly any breathing time for the health system to settle down. The time taken for doubling of cases has reduced drastically,” he said.
Moreover, the rise in cases is also not giving time for patients to recover and get discharged from hospitals. “Only if a batch gets discharged another batch can be accommodated. Even if 10% of the total cases require admission, it is a huge number,” Dr Manjunath said.
Recoveries near 10 lakh mark
With 3,591 persons being discharged on Thursday, the total recoveries touched 9,99,958. Of the remaining 96,561 active patients, 555 are being monitored in ICUs.
As many as 1,29,400 tests were conducted in the last 24 hours, including 1,18,208 RT-PCR tests. With this, the total number of tests rose to 2,31,70,964.
Vaccination
The State has vaccinated 63,26,172 people so far. This includes 5,74,722 healthcare workers and 2,53,899 frontline workers who have taken the first dose of vaccination. As many as 3,59,329 healthcare workers and 1,04,541 frontline workers have taken the second dose.
As many as 28,77,316 senior citizens have been vaccinated in the State since March 1 when the second phase was rolled out. That apart, 19,98,581 persons above 45 years have been vaccinated so far. On Thursday, a total of 1,25,599 beneficiaries have been vaccinated.
