Tests in State cross 4-lakh mark; daily average reduces by half

Shoppers galore: It is business as usual on S.P. Road in Bengaluru though it has been closed by the BBMP. (Source: K. Murali Kumar)

While the total number of tests done so far in Karnataka has crossed four lakh, the average number of tests done per day has reduced by half for the second consecutive day. On an average, the State has been testing 15,000 samples a day in the last one week.

While 7,036 tests were done on Tuesday, 8,249 tests were done on Wednesday, taking the total number of tests to 4,08,506. The number of positive cases too have reduced since Tuesday. While 161 cases were reported on Tuesday, 120 were reported on Wednesday.

Sources in the State’s COVID-19 expert committee said this was because the number of migrants returning from the other States had reduced in the last few days. “All those who had to come have come and have been tested. The backlog of samples in various labs has almost been cleared now,” said a member.

C.N. Manjunath, director of Sri Jayadeva Institute of Cardiovascular Sciences who is also the nodal officer for labs and testing in the State’s COVID-19 task force, said while this may have brought some relief to the State’s COVID burden, the positivity rate at 1.47% has remained almost the same.

On Wednesday, with 120 new cases, the total number of positive cases in the State touched 6,041. The number crossed 5,000-mark four days ago.

With 257 discharges, the number of discharged persons is more than double the positive cases detected on Wednesday. Three more deaths were reported, taking the total toll to 69. While a 32-year-old male resident of Bengaluru Urban district was brought dead to a designated hospital in the city on June 10 and tested positive, another 57-year-old male ILI patient died on June 8. His samples tested positive on Wednesday.

The third death is of a 58-year-old male Maharashtra returnee, who died at a designated hospital in Dharwad on June 9.

The 120 new cases include 68 inter-State and three international travellers. With 42 cases, the highest number has been reported from Bengaluru and over half of them are ILI cases. Also, Bengaluru has reported the highest number of deaths (21 apart from one non-COVID death). Ten of these deaths have occurred in the last 10 days.

Among the new cases, while 27 cases are from Yadgiri, 13 are from Vijayapura, and 11 from Kalaburagi. A majority of the cases from these three districts are Maharashtra returnees.