Karnataka logged 7,955 new Covid-19 cases and 46 related fatalities, taking the total number of infections to 10.48 lakh and the toll to 12,813, on Friday. Out of the 7,955 fresh cases reported on Friday, 5,576 cases were from Bengaluru Urban alone.
Bengaluru Urban accounted for 29 of the 46 deaths reported on Friday. Epidemiologist Dr Giridhar Babu told DH, “The projections say that there will be an increase day-by-day. There will be a lag time between the surge in cases and deaths. Based on Karnataka’s data, it will be 10 to 17 days. The deaths we’re seeing now is a result of cases we saw two weeks ago. The current surge will reflect in deaths two weeks later.”
“The reason is once people get infected, they get admitted when they develop severe illness. They’re put on oxygen or in an ICU. The death generally occurs between 14 and 17 days. Those deaths correspond to the cases that are surging now,” he said adding that the lag between swab collection and getting test reports has been reduced at the most to two or three days in some places.
The state government has called for an emergency meeting of the State Covid-19 Technical Advisory Committee and the Vision Group. “Bengaluru till midnight yesterday (Thursday) reported 6,034 cases. We are much ahead of the conservative projections made. Based on the models we have been studying, the speed of transmission is much higher than the conservative estimates,” he added.
Out of 58,084 active cases, 378 are in intensive care units. The day also saw 3,220 patients getting discharged after recovery. Cumulatively, 10,48,085 Covid-19 positive cases have been confirmed in the state, which includes 9,77,169 discharges.
Mysuru reported five deaths, Belagavi and Kalaburagi two each while Ballari, Bengaluru Rural, Bidar, Chikkaballapur, Chitradurga, Dharwad, Mandya and Uttara Kannada recorded one death each.
On Friday, Mysuru accounted for 283 fresh infections, Kalaburagi 211, Bidar 186, and Hassan 153. A total of over 2,24,58,762 samples, including Friday’s 1,35,163, have been tested so far.
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