BENGALURU: Karnataka is on the brink of crossing the 2 lakh-mark in active cases, of which Bengaluru alone has 1.46 lakh. The last time the state had 2 lakh active cases -- number of patients currently infected -- was on June 11, 2021 with 2,03,769 infected at the time.
However, the largest number of active cases that Karnataka has seen was 6,05,494 on May 15 last year during the second wave of the pandemic. It has remained the highest active caseload through all three waves of the pandemic so far.
The highest active caseload during the first wave was on October 10, 2020 with 1.2 lakh cases. As on Sunday, the state had 1,97,982 active cases. But active hospitalised cases have been minimal at 2,356 -- just 1.19 per cent of the total number of active cases.
Unlike in the first two waves when hospitalisation was much higher, the third wave has seen minimal hospitalisation, which the health officials attribute to the Omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2 virus being "milder", besides the possibility of those infected by stronger variants showing milder symptoms due to the vaccination coverage.
However, the state has yet to precisely estimate the spread of Omicron in the general infected population in Karnataka, as of the 5,091 infected samples sent for genomic sequencing, only 479 (9.40 per cent) are found to be with the variant, while Delta B/B.1.617.2 with 2,937 (57 per cent) and Delta sub-lineages with 1,350 (26 per cent) are still the dominant variants infecting the people.
But genome sequencing has not yet been opened to samples taken from the infected among the general public and has remained restricted to positive cases among international arrivals or those with travel history abroad.
On the brighter note, Bengaluru city reported lesser COVID cases on Sunday with 21,071 additions to the tally than on Saturday which saw 22,284 cases. However, the state in general added 34,047 cases as against 32,793 cases on Saturday, indicating that the number of additions daily is gradually shrinking.