Bengaluru, Jun 5 (IANS): Domestic travel returnees and a good number of contacts of earlier cases were among the 257 people who tested positive for Covid-19 in the last 24 hours, raising the states tally to 4,320, an official said on Friday.

"A total of 257 new cases have been reported from Wednesday 5 p.m. to Thursday 5 p.m.," said a health official. Four patients died of the virus on Thursday, two from Bengaluru Urban and one each from Gadag and Davangere.

Of the new cases, domestic returnees constituted 158 and contacts of earlier cases 94, a big number after many days. Like everyday, returnees from Maharashtra were the highest, numbering 149.

In the past 24 hours, number of cases spiked in Udupi, Bengaluru Urban, Raichur, Mandya, Belagavi, Hassan and Davangere.

Udupi led the tally with 92 cases, followed by Raichur (88), Mandya and Hassan (15 each), Davangere (13), Belagavi (12), Bengaluru Urban (9), Dakshina Kannada (4), Chikkaballapura and Gadag (2 each), and Mysuru, Vijayapura, Ballari, Tumkur and Haveri (1 each).

Of the new cases, 174 are men and 83 women, including 27 children below 10 years of age. On a positive note, 106 patients got discharged on Thursday.

In the past 24 hours, Karnataka has tested 12,268 persons, of which 11,468 reports returned negative. In total, 3.4 lakh samples have been tested so far, of which 3.3 lakh have returned negative.

Across the state, there are 2,651 active cases, while 1,610 people have been discharged and 57 havve succumbed to the dreaded virus so far.

Currently, Udupi is leading the state's Covid burden with 481 active cases, followed by Kalaburagi (375), Raichur (318) and Yadgir (271).

Bengaluru Urban has so far accounted for 13 deaths, followed by Kalaburagi (7), Davangere and Dakshina Kannada (6 each) and Vijayapura and Bidar (5 each), among others.