Coronavirus | Karnataka’s toll up by 217, new cases cross 48,000

Karnataka on Friday reported 48,296 new cases of COVID-19 and recorded 217 deaths. A 30-year old COVID-19 patient in the ICU of a government hospital at Mudnal near Yadgir died during a power outage on Friday. The patient’s kin said disruption in oxygen due to the power outage caused his death.

District Surgeon S.B. Hiremath dismissed the charge, claiming that the death was not caused by power outage, and oxygen supply was not disrupted. Health Department officers and engineers at Gulbarga Electricity Company Limited (GESCOM), said the power outage lasted one-and-a-half hours and the generator had no fuel.

Speaking to The Hindu, Executive Engineer of GESCOM Raghavendra D. said that there was a technical problem at the hospital that led to the power outage. The oxygen system operated independent of power.

Karnataka’s test positivity rate (TPR) for the day stood at 25.44%. Testing was done for 1,89,793 samples, including 1,75,513 RT-PCR tests.

Kerala added 37,199 new cases on Friday, testing 1,49,487 samples. The average TPR was 24.88% on Friday.

The State added 49 new deaths, 18 from Thiruvananthapuram, while Ernakulam and Kozhikode added seven each, Kannur six, Thrissur four, Kottayam three, Kollam two and one death each was reported from Pathanamthitta and Wayanad.

Night curfew was extended till May 8 in Telangana. The State’s TPR on Thursday was 9.92% with 7,646 positive cases. A total of 77,091 samples were tested, and 53 deaths were reported.

Andhra Pradesh added 17,354 infections on Friday and 64 patients died. On Friday, 86,494 samples registered a TPR of 20.06%.

(With inputs from Thiruvananthapuram, Hyderabad and Vijayawada bureaus)