[Politic's] COVID-19: Karnataka And New Delhi district official says border restrictions with Kerala to continue

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Mangaluru: Restrictions on the movement of people enforced at the border with Kerala will continue as there has been no change in the COVID-19 situation in Kerala, Dakshina Kannada district Deputy Commissioner KV Rajendra said.

Giving a clarification on reports claiming that the Centre has lifted the requirement of RT-PCR certificates to cross the border, he said the Karnataka government's order mandating the RT-PCR test negative certificates for those coming to DK from Kerala is still in force.

The order is meant to contain the spread of COVID-19 and the district administration will continue to implement the same, he said.

Rajendra said more than 30,000 new COVID-19 cases are being reported from Kerala daily and the test positivity rate in neighbouring Kasaragod district is around 12 percent.

In Dakshina Kannada, the positivity rate has been brought down to around 2 with a lot of effort and lifting of border restrictions will be like letting in new cases from Kerala. Though it is difficult to implement, the district has no other option than making the RT-PCR certificate mandatory, he said.

The test positivity rate in the Dakshina Kannada district came down to 1.81 percent on Sunday.

New Delhi: India has added 36,401 new COVID-19 infections, taking the total tally of cases to 3,23,22,258, while the toll has climbed to 4,33,049 with 530 more fatalities, according to Union health ministry data updated on Thursday.

The national recovery rate has improved to 97.52 percent, the highest since March last year, according to the data updated at 8 am.

The ministry said that active cases have declined to 3,64,129, the lowest in 149 days, and comprise 1.13 percent of the total infections, the lowest since March last year.

A reduction of 3,286 cases has been recorded in the active COVID-19 caseload in a span of 24 hours.

The ministry said that 18,73,757 tests were conducted on Wednesday, taking the total tests conducted so far for detection of COVID-19 in the country to 50,03,00,840.

The daily positivity rate has been recorded at 1.94 percent and it has been less than three percent for the last 24 days, it said.

The weekly positivity rate has been recorded at 1.95 percent and it has been below three percent for the last 55 days, according to the ministry.

The number of people who have recuperated from the disease has increased to 3,15,25,080, while the case fatality rate stands at 1.34 percent, the data stated.

Cumulatively, 56.64 crore COVID-19 vaccine doses have been administered under the nationwide vaccination drive so far.

India's COVID-19 tally had crossed the 20-lakh mark on August 7 last year 30 lakh on August 23, 40 lakh on September 5 and 50 lakh on September 16.

It went past 60 lakh on September 28, 70 lakh on October 11, crossed 80 lakh on October 29, 90 lakh on November 20 and surpassed the one-crore mark on December 19 last year.

India crossed two crore cases on May 4 and three crore cases on June 23.

The 530 fresh fatalities include 179 from Kerala and 158 from Maharashtra.

A total of 4,33,049 deaths have been reported so far in the country, including 1,35,413 from Maharashtra, 37,061 from Karnataka, 34,610 from Tamil Nadu, 25,077 from Delhi, 22,787 from Uttar Pradesh, 19,049 from Kerala and 18,325 from West Bengal.

The ministry said that more than 70 per cent of the deaths occurred due to comorbidities.

"Our figures are being reconciled with the Indian Council of Medical Research," the ministry said on its website, adding that state-wise distribution of figures is subject to further verification and reconciliation.