Karnataka sees record 87 Covid-19 deaths on Tuesday; death toll climbs to 842

The state reported a record 87 Covid-19 deaths on Tuesday taking the death toll to 842. 56 of these deaths were reported from Bengaluru alone. The state's mortality rate stands at 1.82 per cent and the state capital's is 1.63 per cent. Six patients have died due to non-Covid causes so far in the state.

Ballari reported five deaths, and Mysuru, Dakshina Kannada, and Bagalkote reported four deaths each. According to the dates of deaths provided by the state health department on Tuesday in the daily bulletin, the deaths happened over a period of 12 days from July 2 to July 14. There is no explanation as to why it takes so long for a death to be included in the bulletin.

Out of these 87 deaths, four patients died at their residence and one was brought dead. All fatalities were cases of SARI (severe acute respiratory infection) or ILI (influenza-like illness), one is a contact of a previously diagnosed patient, and another patient's contact is under tracing. The youngest among Tuesday's reported fatalities was a 35-year-old man and the oldest was a 90-year-old man.

All of them showed symptoms of fever, cough, and breathlessness, and all had co-morbidities like diabetes, hypertension, chronic kidney disease, ischemic heart disease, carcinoma, asthma, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease barring 18 patients who had no co-morbidities.

In Monday's press conference, Medical Education Minister Dr K Sudhakar had said that 75 per cent of the Covid patients had died because of their co-morbidities and Covid had only made them sicker, and that only 25 per cent had died because of Covid. The death audit in the state is not complete and is expected in three days, he had said.

As on Tuesday, there were 540 patients in the ICU and 317 were in Bengaluru alone. With 2,496 new cases, the number of active cases now are 25,839. Bengaluru alone accounts for 15,052 active cases now. 1,142 patients were discharged on Tuesday pegging the recovery rate at 37.41 per cent. 664 were discharged from Bengaluru and the recovery rate of the city is 20.92 per cent. On Tuesday alone, 22,653 tests were done taking the total number of tests done so far to 8,56,148.

According to the BBMP's live bed-tracking portal, at Press time, there were 3,401 beds available, including 172 ICU ventilators, 237 ICU beds, 941 high dependency unit beds and 2,051 general beds.