For the first time in many weeks, the trend of improvement in COVID-19 indices on a week-on-week basis in Bengaluru has been reversed with an increase in cases recorded in the week ending July 31 from its previous weeks. Not only has the number of fresh cases registered increased, there has been an increase in the total number of COVID-19 deaths, case fatality rate and positivity rate too. Incidentally, this is the fourth week since strict restrictions have been lifted in the city starting July 4. The number of fresh COVID-19 cases registered in Bengaluru in the week between July 25-31 were 2,988 compared to 2,571 cases the previous week.
Similarly, the number of COVID-19 deaths in Bengaluru were 48 in the week ending July 31 while the death in the previous week was 36. The positivity rate too has increased from 0.62% to 0.72% in the week ending July 31. Positivity rate is the measure of positive cases in 100 tests. Meanwhile, the number of tests conducted in Bengaluru over the last two weeks have remained around 41.13 to 4.15 lakh per week.
However, on the other hand, the number of hospital admissions for COVID-19 have maintained a steady decline. The number of admissions in all hospitals in Bengaluru under government quota was 127 for the week ending July 31, lower than 143, the number of hospital admissions in the previous week.
The fresh surge of cases have also meant that the BBMP has declared 136 active micro containment zones against 79 such zones as of July 25. Mahadevapura zone has the highest number of such micro containment zones (42) followed by Bommanahalli (29) and Bengaluru East (28). RR Nagar Zone is the only other zone with more than 10 such micro containment zones. Going by BBMP War Room reports, wards in the eastern periphery of the city are the wards reporting the highest number of daily cases.