Eleven more people died of coronavirus ( COVID-19 ) in Telangana on Friday, taking the toll to 877, while total cases rose to 1,38,395 as 2,511 samples tested positive for the virus. The State administration said 62,132 more samples had been tested.
There were 305 cases from Greater Hyderabad, 184 from Rangareddy, 170 from Nalgonda, 150 from Karimnagar, 142 from Khammam and 134 from Medchal Malkajgiri.
There was no relief in Andhra Pradesh, and at 10,825 new cases, the State recorded its second biggest single-day spike in the pandemic. The toll rose as 71 more deaths were reported on Saturday. It was the eleventh day of over 10,000 new infections.
Testing in Andhra Pradesh crossed the 40-lakh mark at 40,35,317 samples, including 69,623 in the past day, with a positivity rate of 12.08%.
The State COVID-19 dashboard showed that nearly half of the tests were conducted in Kurnool, East Godavari, Guntur, Krishna and Chittoor districts. East Godavari had the highest positivity rate at 16.44%.
East Godavari also reported the highest single-day tally of infections and five districts reported more than a thousand new infections. Nellore reported the highest number of new deaths.
Kerala’s COVID-19 daily cases shot up again to touch 2,655 on Saturday, as testing covered 40,162 samples.
The case burden was 84,759 and active cases, 21,800.
Eleven more deaths which occurred between August 17 and September 1 were added on to the “provisional COVID death list” by the Health department on Saturday, taking the toll to 337. These deaths would be re-assessed by the State death audit committee.
Four deaths each were reported at Thiruvananthapuram and Kollam and the rest at Thrissur, Kasaragod and Kannur. Continuing the trend, 94% of new cases – 2,503 – were locally acquired infections. Thiruvananthapuram district registered an all-time high of 590 cases, of which all except three were locally acquired infections.
Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan told the media that the disease transmission had moved from the coastal beltto the urban areas.
With Karnataka reporting 9,746 new cases on Saturday, active cases were 99,617, of which 796 were in ICUs. Bengaluru Urban had the highest number of active cases at 41,479, followed by Mysuru with 6,832 cases. The State’s toll touched 6,298 with 128 new deaths. Bengaluru Urban reported 3,093 cases and 34 deaths.
In 24 hours, 76,761 tests, including 35,530 rapid antigen tests, were conducted.
State COVID-19 data showed doubling time for cases improved from 14 days on August 3 to 24 days on September 3.
(With inputs from Vijayawada, Thiruvananthapuran and Bengaluru bureaus)