The coronavirus (COVID-19) epidemic showed steady progression in Kerala with a slight dip in incidence on Saturday. With 54,563 fresh samples tested, the new cases stood at 7,834.
The test positivity rate was 14.3%. On Saturday, 80,818 patients were under treatment in hospitals, with 568 in ICUs and another 127 on ventilator.
The State added 22 more deaths to its toll. These occurred between September 9 and October 1. Thiruvananthapuram accounted for eight deaths, Kannur six, Kozhikode five, Kasaragod, Thrissur and Idukki accounted for one case each.
Almost 97% of new cases – 7,598 out of 7,834 – were locally acquired infections.
Thiruvananthapuram reported 1,049 new cases, Malappuram 973, Kozhikode 941, Ernakulam 925, Thrissur 778, Alapuzha 633, Kollam 534, Palakkad 496, Kannur 423, Kottayam 342, Pathanamthitta 296, Kasaragod 257, Idukki 106 and Wayanad 81.
Telangana’s relatively low reported cases dropped further to 1,718 on Friday. For many days, over 2,000 cases a day were detected and around 55,000 samples tested. On October 2, testing was done for 49,084 people. Eight more patients died.
The new cases included 285 from Greater Hyderabad, 115 from Medchal Malkajgiri, 129 from Rangareddy, 105 from Karimnagar, 103 from Nalgonda, 79 from Khammam, and 76 from Siddipet.
Andhra Pradesh added 6,224 infections and 41 deaths on Saturday. Over the previous day, 72,861 samples were tested and the positivity rate was 8.54%. The positivity rate of all tests done so far was 11.84%, and tests per million stood at 1,12,760.
For the first 10 lakh tests, positivity rate was just 1.84% and it increased to 13.21% for the second 10 lakh tests. Later it went up to 16.47%, 16.86%, and then to 13.07% for the third, fourth and fifth 10 lakh tests. The positivity rate of the last 10 lakh tests came down to 9.64%.
West Godavari reported the highest number of fresh infections while Krishna reported six deaths, the highest. West Godavari reported 890 new infections and one death, followed by Chittoor (827 and 5), East Godavari (824 and 5), Prakasam (619 and 4), Nellore (558 and 3), Guntur (491 and 4), Kadapa (491 and 2), Krishna (392 and 6), Anantapur (282 and 2), Kurnool (225 and 2), Visakhapatnam (225 and 4), Vizianagaram (225 and 1) and Srikakulam (175 and 2).
Karnataka on Saturday reported 9,886 cases and 100 deaths. Active cases continued to remain over a lakh at 1,12,783, and 841 patients were in ICUs. Bengaluru Urban had 3,925 cases and 21 fresh deaths. As many as 84,922 tests were conducted, including 36,514 rapid antigen tests.
(With inputs from Vijayawada, Hyderabad and Bengaluru bureaus)
