Karnataka sees 99 new COVID-19 cases in three days

Karnataka has seen 99 Covid-19 cases — which includes a record 44 on Friday — in the past three days, with a distinct pattern emerging in the surging virus cases in the state.

Three clusters are contributing in a major way to the state’s tally, which now stands at 359: Mysuru’s Nanjangud pharma cluster — a mystery that the government has not been able to crack — and large families from Belagavi and Vijayapura districts, who have tested positive.

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Cases have also soared after contacts of previously diagnosed patients from Bengaluru Urban, which reported 10 new cases, tested positive.

Apart from the 44 cases on Friday, the state reported 36 and 19 cases on Thursday and Wednesday respectively. There have been 13 deaths so far.

Follow the state-wise total of confirmed coronavirus cases here

Asked about the sudden spike in cases, Minister S Suresh Kumar, spokesperson for Covid-19 in Karnataka, said, “We have seen 61 positive cases from Nanjangud’s Jubilant Pharma company alone. As many as 1,705 people from the company have been quarantined. Out of these, 1,225 have already been tested and results of 480 people are awaited.”

Kumar said all cases from Vijayapura are from just two families. “Until a few days ago, it was a corona-free district,” he said.

New measures

Outlining new measures to rein in the pandemic, Kumar said “every district will conduct tests on symptomatic individuals even if the district is virus-free”.

“Eight districts are disease-free right now. Currently, we are testing 2,000 people per day. Karnataka is coming across one positive patient for every 43.56 tests conducted,” he said.

The minister said since private hospitals were referring patients with symptoms to government hospitals after an average of four days, those with symptoms have been instructed to go to fever clinics. “They must immediately be referred to government hospitals,” he said.

He also said Karnataka will be getting 12,400 kits on Friday night out of the 6.5 lakh rapid antibody testing kits received by the Centre. This apart, 10 new labs will be set up soon across the state and every medical college will have at least one testing facility, Kumar said.

New cases
On Friday, apart from Bengaluru Urban’s 10 cases, Mysuru reported 12, Hosapete seven, Belagavi five, Chikkaballapur and Mandya three cases each. Vijayapura saw two new cases while Dakshina Kannada and Bidar reported one each.

In Bengaluru Urban, eight of them are contacts of previously diagnosed patients while two are SARI cases. In Mysuru’s 12 cases, 11 of them were infected by the index patient in the Mysuru Pharma company cluster, P52. One patient is a contact of P273.

The three patients in Malavalli, Mandya, contracted the disease from P171. The patient from Dakshina Kannada’s Uppinangadi has a travel history to Delhi on March 28, days after the Tablighi Jamaat congregation ended.

The Bidar case has a contact history with someone who had travelled to Delhi recently, while two patients from Vijayapura are contacts of P221. All seven patients from Hosapete, Ballari, are contacts of P141.

The three cases from Chikkaballapur are contacts of P250, while five patients from Belagavi are contacts of P127.