JOIN USDakshina Kannada surpasses Bangalore Urban in Covid deaths in August
Dakshina Kannada, which is witnessing an upward trend in daily cases following a spike in infections in Kerala, has recorded 130 fatalities in August, making it the district with highest number of deaths in the state for the said month.
Bengaluru Urban registered 101 Covid deaths in August.
One in every five Covid deaths in Karnataka has occurred in Dakshina Kannada in August. The district, in its defence, said 29 of those deaths were of patients from other districts, which if taken into account, the coastal district would still tie with the state capital on the districts with most number of deaths for the month.
According to the officials, 59 per cent of the active cases are in Mangaluru city. Also, 66 per cent of the total active cases are in home isolation. The district administration is mulling over filing FIRs against primary contacts who breach quarantine. Dr Ashok H, Covid nodal officer for Dakshina Kannada district, told DH that the positivity rate over the past seven days in the district has dropped to 2.04 per cent and case fatality rate to 1.43 per cent.
"Out of 2,248 active cases, 1,486 (66.1 per cent), are in home isolation, 544 (24.2 per cent) in hospitals and 218 (9.7 per cent) in Covid Care Centres. The reason for higher hospitalisation rate compared to other districts is that we are admitting nursing and paramedical students, who are testing positive, who don't have severe symptoms, to hospitals so that they compulsorily remain isolated," he said.
"We have 32 paramedical and eight medical colleges. We got clusters from there when we screened 7,000-odd students. Sullia also had 8 per cent positivity rate previously for one month but now has only 145 active cases," he added.
Now the focus is on Beltangady taluk which has the next highest active cases with 296.
"Deaths are high because medical colleges like Yenepoya are getting referrals from other districts under Ayushman Bharat-Arogya Karnataka. Earlier we would send them back to their districts but now with the centralised bed management system, deaths of patients from other districts occurring in Mangaluru are being recorded as Dakshina Kannada district's deaths," Dr Ashok said.
Taluk committees
Apart from district-level technical expert committee, similar ones have been constituted at the taluk-level apart from facility-based ones.
"Deaths occurring after one month of recovery from Covid, due to complications, are also being considered Covid deaths, reveal verbal autopsies and case sheets. Majority of them are occurring in medical colleges. Despite 30 different entry points being strictly monitored by the police at the Kerala border, we have people slipping in by foot," he said.