K’taka continues to report above 40K cases; 490 dead

Karnataka’s Covid cases continue to remain above 40,000 with Sunday reporting 47,930, new cases, taking the number of active cases to 56,4485. The day also recorded 490 Covid-related deaths taking the total toll to 18776.

Bengaluru Rural, Mysuru, Mandya, Tumakuru, Hassanna and Dakshina Kannada reported over 1000 cases each.

Bengaluru recorded 20,897 and 281 deaths. Nine city wards are contributing to the high caseload with up to 3,500 active cases, according to the ward-level data of the past 10 days. The wards are a mix of upscale localities and economically weaker sections.

Shantalanagar, one of the prime localities in the central business district (CBD), tops the list of hard-hit wards. As of May 5, it had 4,390 active cases. Health officials attributed this to high mobility. “The area has people who travel in and out of Bengaluru a lot. The spread of infection is linked to such movement,” an official was quoted in the media.

The nine other wards with a high active caseload are Bellandur (more than 3,600 infections), Horamavu (3,000), Hagadur (2,500), Rajarajeshwari Nagar (2,500), New Thippasandra (2,450), Varthur (2,300), HSR Layout (2,300), Begur (2,200) and Arakere (2,100). Most of them are in the tech corridor, which usually witnesses construction activity.

Though there are colonies and slums of migrant labourers in the wards, the second wave of Covid-19 has struck almost every other large apartment complex in the areas, said another civic official.