The Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) has decided to open up two more COVID Care Centres in light of daily increase in COVID-19 cases being recorded in the city. This means that BBMP will not increase the capacity of the existing COVID Care Centre set up at the Bangalore International Exhibition Centre for the time being. BIEC is the largest such facility in the country with a potential capacity of more than 10,000 beds. Currently, it has 1,500 beds.
Rajendra Kataria, senior IAS officer in-charge of these facilities, told TNM that the idea behind not expanding BIEC or at other non-medical venues is to allow businesses to open up as quickly as possible when they can.
“Today only we have added one 300-bed facility at the Bangalore University Jnana Bharathi campus and we can expand it further if needed. This building was not being used even prior to the pandemic so we can continue functioning without disrupting any other work. Another such facility will be added tomorrow. Other facilities at medical and paramedical institutions can be increased, though we may have to discontinue some facilities as colleges and universities might soon open up,” he told TNM.
He added, “Right now, at the COVID Care Centres, 25% of the daily cases we are getting are the new patients, but at the same time we are seeing almost a similar or a slightly lesser number of discharges. So, when we feel that there is a situation where we need to expand BIEC, we will take a call.”
“There are not many empty beds other than the COVID Care Centre at BIEC, so there is no question of shutting down these facilities. BIEC is one of the biggest facilities, and there are more than 700 more beds available there. So, we are trying to fill all the other facilities before sending any patient there. Based on the trend, we will decide if there is a need to arrange more beds at BIEC,” Sarfaraz Khan, BBMP Joint Commissioner and member of the CCC Task Force told TNM.
As of date, Bengaluru has 33,070 active coronavirus cases. At present more than 80% of the city’s caseload are asymptomatic patients who can either opt for home isolation or get admitted in government or private COVID Care Centres. Other than that, there are COVID Care Centres set up by many resident welfare associations and apartment complexes.
According to the real-time database, 3,346 out of 4,276 beds at these government-run facilities are occupied.
However, officials claimed that they have identified venues where ad-hoc facilities can be set up swiftly across the eight zones in the city in case of an emergency situation.