Domestic returnees continue to swell Karnataka Covid tally

People returning from two states hit hard by the Covid-19 pandemic have increased the number of cases in Karnataka in the past 19 hours by 115, raising the state's tally to 2,533, an official said on Thursday.

"New cases reported from Wednesday 5 p.m. to Thursday 5 p.m. 115," said a health official. As many as 85 new cases had travel history to Maharashtra and eight to Tamil Nadu.

Covid cases spiked in Udupi, Hassan, Chitradurga, Dakshina Kannada, Bidar and Bengaluru Urban.

Of all the cases, 1,650 are active, 834 have been discharged while 47 persons have succumbed to the dreaded virus so far.

In the past 24 hours, 53 patients got discharged, 13 in Davangere, 12 in Dakshina Kannada, nine each in Yadgir and Vijayapura, five in Gadag, three in Belagavi and one each in Mysuru and Bagalkote. Thirteen people have been admitted to ICUs across the state.

Of the new cases, Udupi led with (29), followed by Dakshina Kannada (24), Hassan (13), Bidar (12), Benglauru Urban (9), Yadgir (7), Chitradurga (6), Kalaburagi (5), Haveri (4), Chikkamagaluru (3), Vijayapura (2) and Raichur (1).

Unlike before, most cases in Karnataka now are returnees from other states, mainly from Maharashtra. A 35-year-old man from Bengaluru Urban had international travel history to Qatar.

Fourteen of the new cases are contacts of earlier positive cases.

Among the new cases, 83 are men and 32 are women, including seven children below 10 years of age.

In the past 24 hours, Karnataka has tested 10,470 people for Covid-19, out of which 10,239 reports returned negative.

In total, 2.52 lakh samples have been tested so far, of which 2.46 lakh reports returned negative.

Top five places with active cases in the state include Mandya (227), Yadagiri (153), Udupi (145), Hassan (140) and Bengaluru Urban (129).

Bengaluru Urban has seen 10 deaths, followed by Kalaburagi (7), Dakshina Kannada (6), Vijayapura (5).

The state's patient discharge rate has declined to 33 per cent.