99 people have tested positive for Covid-19 at Dharwad’s SDM College of Medical Sciences on Friday, according to reports. This takes the total number of cases in the college to 281. Out of the 281 cases, only 6 patients are symptomatic, according to District Collector Nitish Patil.
Patil said all cases were “breakthrough infections”, meaning the patients had received both doses of a vaccine. At the same time, 33 students below the age of 18 and a staffer have tested positive at a private boarding school in Dommasandra in Whitefield.
Karnataka logged 402 fresh Covid-19 cases and six deaths on Friday, taking the total number of infections to 29,94,963 and the toll to 38,193. Bengaluru Urban continued to top the list of cases (224), as the city saw 129 discharges and one death. Total number of active cases in the state is now 6,611.
result of 66 fully vaccinated students and staff of the college had turned out to be positive following testing of over 300 students. More people from the college are being tested today.
The samples of the infected people will be sent for genome sequencing. “The students were fully vaccinated… We will be sending a few samples for genome sequencing to check if there’s a new variant,” state health commissioner D Randeep said.
The health commissioner said a freshers’ party at the college on November 17 is responsible for the outbreak.
Chairman of Manipal Hospital and member of Covid task force team in Karnataka Dr Sudarshan Ballal said the Covid cluster is a cause of concern.
“There was a large cluster that has turned to be positive and all of them were at an event. This means the variant of this virus is infectious. Second concern, all the students were fully vaccinated which means there is a immune escape phenomena,” he said.
However, he said, the disease is not severe. “But happening at this juncture is certainly concerning to us… We should go back to stringent Covid behavior,” he added.
