Bengaluru sees sharp rise in Covid cases after days of flat line

Credit: DH Graphic

Bengaluru sees sharp rise in new Covid cases after days of flat line

Though Bengaluru’s R0 or reproduction number has remained 1.04, the city reported a sudden rise in new Covid cases on Thursday.

The state capital reported 91 fresh cases of the novel coronavirus, up by 36 from Wednesday’s figure.

The situation seems to be changing suddenly.

Between April 12 and 19, new daily cases of Covid-19 in the city had remained flat lined. As per the BBMP’s daily Covid bulletin, fresh cases averaged between 41 and 55 during the seven-day period.

The state capital’s Covid growth rate is 0.105 as per the model developed by a researcher from the Indian Statistical Institute and his team, which consist of researchers from the Indian Institute of Science, too. Besides, of the 1,474 active cases in the city, only eight patients are in hospital.

A member of the state’s Covid-19 Technical Advisory Committee (TAC) said if there was another wave, Bengaluru would be the epicentre as was the case in the previous waves.

“An R0 of 1 means one infected person can infect one other. During the peak of the second wave, the R0 went up to 6. A weekly TPR (test positivity rate) of 5% or more would be worrisome. But it isn’t more than 1% now. Other districts are barely reporting any Covid cases at all. Most of the daily cases are being reported in Bengaluru,” the member told DH.

A senior official in the Health Department said if Karnataka mandated mask-wearing, that would go against the spirit of the Centre’s letter to all states to not impose any Covid mandates after March 31. Other states have reintroduced the mask mandate under laws other than the Disaster Management Act.

Health Commissioner D Randeep said they were closely monitoring the Covid scenario in Delhi, but stressed that there had not been any hospitalisations or deaths in the national capital.

“As per genome sequencing results from March 1 this year, out of 714 results, 574 had the Ba.2 Omicron variant, which is 82.70%. We have not found the Ba.2.12.1 that was found in Delhi.”

Karnataka has not seen an increase in hospitalisations or deaths either.

The union government is likely to issue an advisory, asking states to increase testing and surveillance, Randeep added.

BBMP Special Commissioner (Health) Dr K V Thrilok Chandra attributed the spike in daily cases to those reported from the East and Mahadevapura zones.

“We are looking into specifics on whether they are from any particular clusters. If the situation continues like this for another four to five days, then it is worrisome,” he added.

As per the BBMP bulletin, 691 tests were done in the East Zone in the last seven days with the positivity rate being 0.85% or six positive cases.

In the Mahadevapura Zone, 494 tests done during the same period. Of them, 18 tested positive, putting its weekly positivity rate at 3.64%.

The TAC member quoted above said that since domestic travellers from Delhi cannot be tested in Karnataka, citizens should mask up without waiting for penalties to be levied.

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