MANGALURU, HUBBALLI: Here is some cheering news. Dakshina Kannada and Dharwad districts are seeing a fall in the Covid-19 cases.Dakshina Kannada, one of the first districts in the state to witness a surge in cases, has been seeing a drastic dips in the past one week. The positivity rate, which had peaked to 28 per cent two months ago, has now come down to 5 per cent which is almost similar to the state average.
The district has been faring well on other indicators like mortality and discharge rates compared to other high-burden districts. Sources said the positivity rate steadily started sliding in the past two months after testing was ramped up and as people started voluntarily coming forward to get the tests done. On an average, over 3,000 tests are conducted daily.
Deputy Commissioner K V Rajendra said they are now focusing on shedding the high Covid burden district tag. He said the active cases which had touched 5,000 a few weeks ago, are now below 3,000.
As for Dharwad district, for the first time in the last four months, the number of positive cases is down. The district which was reporting 300 cases per day, is now registering 150.
One of the reasons is that the health department along with the district administration has been conducting more than 1,800 tests per day. As the number of active cases declined, many Covid Care Centres have been closed.District health officer Dr Yashwant Madinkar said as the number of positive cases are declining, the number of active cases may fall further.
As per data, the number of active cases was less than 200 in the beginning of June. The positive cases gradually increased and active cases reached 2,200 in mid-July. In September, active cases were about 2,500 which continued till October first week. In a span of 20 days, the number of fresh cases declined and also active cases came down to 1098 as on Wednesday from 2,524 on October 5.