356 Maharashtra returnees compound Karnataka COVID cases

Domestic returnees from Maharashtra accounted for 91 per cent or 356 of the 388 COVID cases in Karnataka, raising the state's tally to 3,796, an official said on Tuesday.

"New cases reported from Monday 5 p.m. to Tuesday 5 p.m., 388," said a health official.

Of the 368 domestic returnees, cases with Maharashtra travel history constituted 97 per cent.

Only 20 new cases contracted the virus from earlier contacts.

In the past 24 hours, cases spiked in Udupi, Kalaburagi, Bengaluru Urban, Yadgir, Raichur, Belagavi, Hassan, Bidar, Davangere and Bagalkote.

Among the new cases, Udupi contributed (150), followed by Kalaburagi (100), Belagavi (51), Raichur (16), Bengaluru Urban (12), Bidar (10), Hassan and Bagalkote (9 each), Davangere (7), Yadgir (5), Mandya and Vijayapura (4 each), Bengaluru Rural (3), Chikkaballapura, Dharwad and Tumkur (2 each) and Kolar and Haveri (1 each).

Of the new cases, 257 are men and 131 women, including 27 children below 10.

On Monday, 75 patients got discharged.

In the past 24 hours, Karnataka has tested 14,812 persons, of which 13,915 tested negative.

In total, 3.19 lakh samples have been tested so far, of which 3.1 lakh were negative.

Currently, Karnataka is equipped with 64 COVID testing labs, 39 government and 25 private.

"Karnataka championed public private partnership to ramp up testing capacity. With 39 testing labs in various government medical colleges, institutions and hospitals and 25 private labs, we now have 64 COVID testing labs," tweeted Medical Education Minister K. Sudhakar.

In March, the state started with eight labs.

Across the state, 2,339 are active cases, 1,403 discharged, 14 patients in ICU and 52 died of the virus.

Top five places with active cases in the state include Udupi (346), Kalaburagi (270), Yadgir (262), Mandya (208) and Raichur (195).

Of the total, Bengaluru Urban has so far accounted for (11) deaths, followed by Kalaburagi (7), Dakshina Kannada (6) and Vijayapura and Bidar (5 each) among others.