B’luru adds over 2k cases, K’taka’s tally crosses 1mn

Bengaluru The city on Wednesday added 2906 new cases in the last 24 hours taking the total number of active cases to 21789. The toll surged to 4630 after 11 more deaths were reported.

The spike in Bengaluru took the number of infections in Karnataka beyond the 4000 mark for a second day in a row.

Karnataka recorded 4234 new Covid cases on Wednesday thereby taking its active case count to 30865. The death toll climbed to 12585 as 18 more people succumbed to the virus. The surge in cases has prompted the government to declare that the state is reeling from a second wave.

The infections since the beginning of March have seen a sharp spike, sparking fears that Bengaluru could relapse into a phase it had seen in September and October last year when it started to record an average case count of over 3000 and a high of over 5000 per day.

The BS Yediyurappa-led government has even been accused of not taking the recommendations of the technical advisory committee or officials from announcing stricter measures to contain the spread.

Former BBMP commissioner Manjunath Prasad on Wednesday said that their proposal to make negative RT-PCR Covid test reports mandatory for passengers entering Bengaluru from all states was not approved by the government.

The state government has ruled out another lockdown that could further cripple the already fledgling economy and cash crunch in the state, experts and political leaders said.

Not only Bengaluru, the situation in other districts in the state has deteriorated as well, data shows. The border district of Bidar registered 208 new cases while Kalaburagi, Mysuru and Tumakuru reported 144, 109 and 102 cases respectively on Wednesday.