Karnataka: Biggest single-day spike of 7,908 new COVID-19 cases
Bengaluru: Karnataka on Friday reported the biggest single-day spike of 7,908 new cases of COVID-19 and 104 related fatalities, taking the total number of infections to 2,11,108 and the death toll to 3,717, the health department said.
The day also saw 6,940 patients getting discharged after recovery. The previous single-day spike was on August 12 with 7,883 cases.
Out of the 7,908 fresh cases, 2,452 cases were from Bengaluru urban alone.
As of August 14 evening, 2,11,108 positive cases have been confirmed and they included 3,717 deaths and 1,28,182 discharges, the health bulletin said.
Out of 79,201 active cases, 78,454 patients are in isolation at designated hospitals and are stable, while 747 are in the intensive care unit (ICU), it said.
A total of 22 out of 104 deaths reported on Friday were from Bengaluru urban followed by Mysuru (10), Ballari (9), Dharwad (8), Davangere and Udupi (7), Dakshina Kannada (6), Belagavi, Kalaburagi and Koppal (5), Shivamogga (3), Raichur, Tumkur, Hassan, Vijayapura, Haveri and Chamrajanagara (2), and Gadag, Mandya, Chikkamagaluru, Bidar and Uttara Kannada (1).
Most of the dead were either with a history of severe acute respiratory infection (SARI) or influenza-like illness (ILI).
Among the districts which saw the new cases, Bengaluru urban accounted for 2,452, Ballari 608, Shivamogga 413, Davangere 351, Belagavi 334, Udupi 322, Dakshina Kannada 307, Mysuru 291, Kalaburagi 229, Raichur 220 and Dharwad 219 followed by others.
Bengaluru urban district tops the list of positive cases, with a total of 84,185 infections, followed by Ballari 13,048 and Mysuru 9,280.
Among those discharged, too, Bengaluru urban topped the list with 49,392 followed by Ballari 6,948 and Kalaburagi 6,150.
A total of 19,38,954 samples have been tested so far, out of which 56,638 were tested on Friday alone. Among the samples tested during the day, 29,422 were rapid antigen tests.
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Congress using hijab issue to pacify minority anger, alleges Karnataka LoP R Ashoka
Bengaluru: Leader of Opposition in the Assembly R. Ashoka has accused the Congress government of using the hijab issue to placate what he described as discontent among minority voters after the Davanagere by-election.
In a post on X on Wednesday, Ashoka alleged that the state government, instead of addressing issues such as price rise, corruption, farmers’ distress and law and order, was attempting to retain its minority vote base by reviving the hijab issue.
Referring to the 2022 dress code introduced by the BJP government, which prohibited hijab in schools and colleges, Ashoka said the Karnataka High Court had upheld the policy and emphasised the importance of discipline in educational institutions.
He questioned the Congress government’s move to revisit the issue and asked whether setting aside the court-backed policy to benefit one community could be described as secularism.
Ashoka further alleged that while the government was willing to permit hijab, it continued to prohibit saffron shawls.
He accused the government of dividing students on religious lines rather than treating schools and colleges as spaces of equality.
Drawing a comparison with Mamata Banerjee’s government in West Bengal, Ashoka claimed that excessive appeasement politics had harmed the state and warned that the Congress in Karnataka could face a similar political response.
He said voters in Karnataka would teach the Congress a lesson for what he termed “vote-bank politics” and for compromising constitutional and judicial principles.
