Covid surge unabated in South states

Chennai: Southern states continued reporting high coronavirus caseloads on Saturday with Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Karnataka seeing biggest single day spikes yet again, while there was no sign of the pandemic abating in Andhra Pradesh, which recorded yet another day of 7,000 plus cases.

Incidentally, Tamil Nadu crossed the grim milestone of two lakh cases, although cured persons outnumbered the active cases. Kerala witnessed its highest single day spike so far, recording 1,103 fresh COVID-19 cases, taking the infection count to 18,098. Over 1.5 lakh persons are under observation. Karnataka's single day tally on Saturday stood at 5,072, with nearly half of the cases coming from capital Bengaluru urban alone.

Second after Maharashtra in the total number of cases, Tamil Nadu on Saturday breached the grim milestone of two lakh Coronavirus cases, coupled with its biggest daily spike of 6,988 fresh infections that pushed the tally to 2,06,737. Tamil Nadu crossed the one lakh mark on July 3 and sailed past 1.50 lakh positive cases on July 15. In its highest single day spike till now, Kerala on Saturday reported 1,103 fresh infections, even as the cumulative tally stood at 18,098.

In Andhra Pradesh too, the upward spiral of virus cases continued as another 7,813 were added in a day to take the overall tally to 88,671 on Saturday. The total number of COVID-19 patients discharged so far touched 43,255 and the gross toll was 985. The state now has 44,431 active cases, according to the bulletin.