Karnataka records 97% drop in active cases in 100 days

In August, five districts contributed to 75% of active cases

A health worker collecting swab for testing in Bengaluru on Thursday.

In 100 days, Karnataka has flattened the active cases by 97% from 6,03,639 on May 17 to 18,386 on August 31. In the last four weeks, active cases dropped from 24,280 to 18,386.

A look at the district-wise spread of active cases in August shows that Bidar and Raichur had the lowest number of active cases -- two and six, respectively.

At the other end of the spectrum, five districts contributed 75% of State’s total active cases as on August 31. Bengaluru Urban had the highest number with 7,438 active cases, contributing 41% of the total active cases. With 2,322 active cases, Dakshina Kannada shared 13%, Udupi (1,697) 9%, Mysuru (1,021) and Hassan (1,050) 6% each. Experts say the performance of these districts in September and October will set the future COVID-19 trend in the State.

The number of new COVID-19 cases in the State increased by only 1.4% during this month — from 29.09 lakh to 29.49 lakh, up by 39,487 cases.

According to an analysis by Project Jeevan Raksha, a public-private partnership initiative involving Public Health Foundation of India, Indian Medical Association and Proxima, a management consulting firm, 10 districts, which added more than a thousand new cases, contributed 87% of the total new COVID-19 cases in the State during this period.

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While Bengaluru Urban added 9,322 cases, Dakshina Kannada added 8,720, Udupi 3,719, Mysuru 2,728, Hassan 2,634, Kodagu 1,981, Uttara Kannada 1,386, Chikkamagaluru 1,326, Shivamogga 1,258 and Tumakuru 1,216 cases.

Mysore Sanjeev, convener of Project Jeevan Raksha, said eight districts in the State demonstrated high-quality containment management by ensuring less than 100 new cases during the period. While Koppal, Vijayapura, Raichur and Bagalkote reported 69, 64, 59 and 53 cases respectively, Haveri saw 52 cases, Gadag 43, Yadgir 31 and Bidar 30.

With the death toll increasing by 688 (from 36,647 to 37,315) during August, the 28-day mortality Moving Growth Rate (MGR) of Karnataka during this period remained at 1.8%.

While Raichur reported zero COVID-19 deaths during the period, Yadgir, Gadag, Bidar, and Kalaburagi witnessed one death each.

The number of deaths in Dakshina Kannada outnumbered Bengaluru Urban in a single month. While Dakshina Kannada witnessed 130 deaths, Bengaluru Urban reported 101 deaths, which means that one in every five COVID-19 deaths in Karnataka occurred in Dakshina Kannada. Two-third of the deaths occurred in Dakshina Kannada (130), Bengaluru Urban (101), Hassan (54), Kolar (49), Mysuru (49), Udupi (38), and Mandya (26), according to the analysis.

“The 28-day mortality Moving Growth Rate is relatively higher in Dakshina Kannada (9%), Udupi (9%), and Kolar (8.5%), when compared with the State's mortality MGR of 1.8%. This indicates that the daily death toll is relatively increasing faster when compared with other districts of the State,” Mr Sanjeev said.

May challenging month

So far, May has been the most challenging period for Karnataka wherein active cases crossed 6 lakh and Test Positivity Rate (TPR) for the month was over 25%. One in four people tested positive during May when 4.1 million tests were carried out and over a million COVID-19 patients were traced.

However, in August Karnataka tested 4.8 million samples (20% higher than the tests carried out in May) and detected 44,321 cases. As many as 110 tests were carried out to detect one positive COVID patient, Mr Sanjeev said.

“There is some room for Karnataka to improve its COVID management performance and reduce the active cases below 10,000 and death toll as well. It needs to scale up daily testing by at least three times from the current level in districts that witnessed relatively high caseloads in August,” he added.