BENGALURU: The Covid-19 infection of the Omicron variant, although milder than other variants, is most likely to infect a huge number of people. Health Minister Dr K Sudhakar said the doubling rate in the third Covid-19 wave is much faster than the previous two waves in Karnataka.
In the first wave, it took 10-12 days for the fresh case count to double on an average, while in the second wave it took eight days. But now, cases are doubling in 2 to 2.5 days, he pointed out. Explaining the trajectory of how the third wave took off, Sudhakar said that on December 28 last year, Bengaluru reported 269 cases while the rest of the state reported 87 cases. A week later, Bengaluru reported 3,605 cases, while the rest of the state reported 641 cases.
Virus spread uniform across state: Min
On January 11, the state capital reported 10,800 new cases and the remaining districts reported 3,673 cases, bringing the state’s day positivity rate to 10.3 per cent. So, in 15 days between December 28 and January 11, the cases have increased by 32.64% in Bengaluru Urban district, 32.65% in BBMP limits and by 36.44% in the state, the minister said.
“It is not that the rest of Karnataka is behind Bengaluru. The Covid-19 virus is spreading uniformly across the state. However, Bengaluru remains the epicentre, with 75 per cent of the active caseload, similar to other metro cities,” Sudhakar said. On Thursday, 25,005 new Covid-19 cases were reported in the state, with Bengaluru accounting for 18,374.
The day’s positivity rate shot up to 12.39 per cent and the active case count crossed the one lakh mark, touching 1,15,733. Bengaluru crossed the 90,000 mark in active cases, reporting 90,893 cases as of Thursday. On the first day of the new year, the state saw 1,033 new cases and since then, there has been a 24.2 fold increase in daily new cases.
The overall positivity rate has begun to increase in the last five days and it rose to 5.35 per cent on Thursday. The recovery rate continues to decline, dropping to 95.06 per cent in the day. However, the only positive sign is the reduced mortality rate.
With eight deaths in the day, taking the state toll to 38,397, the fatality rate reduced from 1.23 per cent to 1.22 per cent. I n the capital, the recovery rate went below the 93 per cent mark, to 92.06 per cent. Here too, with three deaths, the fatality reduced from 1.23 % to 1.21 %.
