Bengaluru:: Karnataka on Friday crossed the 1,000- mark of Covid cases with 69 persons testing positive, taking the total to 1,056. This is the highest spike in a single day in the state even as panic-stricken superstitious people held a massive temple fair to ward off the virus flouting all lockdown norms.
The spike in Covid cases was due to the 20 people who had come from Gulf region to Dakshina Kannada and Udupi in repatriation flights testing positive.
There was one more death taking the toll to 36. The 11 cases in Bengaluru city were all secondary contacts of a 34-year-old hospital staff working in Shifa Hospital. He had contracted his infection from a 42-year-old man with Severe Acute Respiratory Infection (SARI), who had visited the hospital.
Meanwhile, throwing caution to the winds, hundreds of villagers of Kollagondanahalli in Ramanagara district’s Kanakapura taluk bordering Tamil Nadu conducted a massive religious fair “to ward off coronavirus”. Visuals of residents holding up plates of offerings at Maramma Temple in Kollagondanahalli went viral on social media. Devotees did not wear masks and there was no social distancing. —Shankar Raj
