Bengaluru: After a gap of two days, the COVID-19 positive in the state are pointing northward, with select pockets across Karnataka hitting the headlines again.
Among the sixteen coronavirus positive cases reported since Wednesday evening, nine are from Bengaluru alone.
With these nine cases, the total positive cases in the city touched 100 and the state tally is 443. Two each fresh cases have been reported from Mandya, Vijayapura, Hubballi and Dakshin Kannada.
All the nine from the city have been reported from a slum pocket at Hongasandra, where one daily wage labourer was tested positive earlier.
The new patients shared the same roof of patient P419, who was working as a labourer. He tested positive on Wednesday and the health bulletin revealed that he was suffering from Severe Acute Respiratory Infection (SARI).
Of the 2 cases reported from Vijayapura, one was in contact with a positive patient and contact tracing has been launched on the other.
With Hongasandra outbreak and Malavalli in Mandya district reporting increase in fresh cases after a gap, it does look like community outbreak. However, state Health and Family Welfare Department has denied this.
Department additional chief secretary Jawaid Akhtar said that all the nine new cases who have tested positive on Thursday are primary contacts of one earlier patient, known as P-419. The department was checking all his contacts as well as secondary contacts in the area.
However, panic has already set in at the Vidya Jyothi Nagar in Hongasandra and sources claim that 188 have been identified as contacts of the P419 and have been quarantined at a government facility.
The whole area is sealed down and more samples have been taken whose results are expected by Friday. The whole area is being sanitised by BBMP and security have been beefed up.
Two cases from Hubli and two from Mandya are primary contacts of infected patients.
The case from Dakshin Kannada is a 78-year-old female who is a primary contact of a positive patient.
