On June 2, when the State’s health bulletin showed two positive cases from Tumakuru, District Health Officer M.B. Nagendrappa was quick to clarify that they were “follow-up” and not fresh cases which tested positive on the 10th day in the hospital.
The two patients had tested positive on May 21 and were under treatment in a designated COVID-19 hospital. They tested positive again on the 10th day and were hence listed as “positive cases”, he said.
Sources in the Health Department said this is not a lone case and there are nearly 700 such “follow-up” positive cases in the State that are getting added to the tally of positive cases.
C.N. Manjunath, director of Sri Jayadeva Institute of Cardiovascular Sciences, who is the nodal officer for labs and testing in the State’s COVID-19 task force, said there could be duplication in the State’s list of positive cases due to the “follow-up” positive cases. “Several cases are testing positive even after seven to 10 days of treatment and this is because the viral load continues to be high in some patients. Also, in a few patients the RNA of a dead virus can also sometimes test positive,” he said.
However, Health Commissioner Pankaj Kumar Pandey denied any duplication of cases in the total tally. “There is a separate column in the ICMR portal for recording follow-up positive cases and we also have the liberty to mention it as “duplicate” cases.”
On Tuesday, with 161 new cases, the State saw the least number of cases since June 1. In the last one week, it has been reporting a record number of cases, above 200 each a day. On Tuesday, the total number of cases touched 5,921.
Two more patients, including a 17-year-old female patient, succumbed to the infection taking the death toll to 66, apart from two non-COVID-19 cases.
The 17-year-old from Kalaburagi, the youngest person to die due to COVID-19 in the State so far, had a demyelinating disorder – a condition that results in damage to the protective covering (myelin sheath) that surrounds nerve fibers in the brain, optic nerves and spinal cord. She was admitted on June 4 with fever, headache and breathlessness and died the same day. Her reports returned positive on June 9.
Another 65-year-old male ILI patient in Bengaluru Urban with several comorbidities succumbed on June 8.
Testing reduced
The total number of tests conducted per day reduced by half of what were done from the start of June. While a record 15,179 tests, the highest, were done on June 3, only 7,036 tests were done on Tuesday. Among the new cases, Yadgir recorded the highest on Tuesday with 61 cases. Bengaluru Urban recorded 29 cases, its highest.
