Officials of Bengaluru’s civic body said that they are maintaining a strict vigil in light of some COVID-19 clusters being reported from some parts of the city since the start of February. Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) officials said they are taking adequate measures to prevent the occurrence of the second wave of cases in the city. These include increased testing, tracing contacts and enforcement of COVID-19 appropriate behaviour like wearing masks and physical distancing.
The largest cluster in Bengaluru was an apartment complex, which reported 105 cases. This was followed by another cluster at another residential complex in Bellandur where 26 residents tested positive for the novel coronavirus. Last week clusters were reported in the Yelahanka zone mostly among students of two educational institutions.
“We have increased the number of tests in recent days. We are also trying to enforce COVID-19 appropriate measures as much as possible from our side. So this is just reinforcement of most of the existing activities. There is nothing extraordinary that we are doing now compared to the peak of the crisis,” Dr Vijayendra, Chief Health Officer, BBMP told TNM.
He added that BBMP officials are trying to ascertain that students who are returning to colleges from neighbouring states are tested. “If they have a negative RT-PCR test no older than three days, we are not asking for fresh tests,” he added.
Dr Trilok Chandra (IAS), Commissioner of Health and Family Welfare in Karnataka said that similar measures have been put in place in other districts as well to ensure there is no second wave. “The numbers so far do not suggest a second wave. We have ramped up surveillance measures. We are intensifying tracing so that cases are detected early and the virus spread can be checked,” he said.
On February 15, the state government had ordered mandatory negative RT-PCR test reports not older by 72 hours for all incoming passengers from Maharashtra and Kerala in the wake of high COVID-19 caseloads in both states. As a precautionary measure, Karnataka also decided to reinforce containment measures in institutions or buildings reporting more than five cases.
More recently marshals have also been asked to enforce COVID-19 appropriate behaviour in gatherings like weddings.
What the numbers say
According to BBMP War Room Data, Bengaluru has a cumulative positivity rate of 5.34% and Case Fatality Rate of 1.1%. According to Union government guidelines, the target positivity rate should be below 5% and CFR is 1%.
Bengaluru has been seeing a dip on daily COVID-19 cases as well as total cases on a month-to-month basis since November 2020. The number of cases reported in Bengaluru in, December, January and February are 18551, 10311 and 6264 respectively.
Increase in CFR
Other than CFR, all metrics seem to have improved in February from the preceding months as it has been the case since November.
Dr Vijayendra reasoned that the increase in the case fatality rate can be due to two reasons. “One, we are seeing a trend of late reporting of cases. This is contributing to more deaths as we are allowing home isolation. People should get medical attention at the slightest sign of distress. This is the main reason for the increase in deaths as doctors find it difficult if the patient reaches a critical point,” he said. He added, “The other reason is that since the number of cases reported have gone down, a slight increase in the number of deaths statistically increases the CFR drastically.”
But Dr Pradeep Banandur, an epidemiologist at NIMHANS (National Institute of Mental Health And Neurological Sciences) said that the trend over the last seven days is worrying. The positivity rate for the state has seen a fractional increase in the last week. While the positivity rate statewide for the last seven days was 0.6% on February 7 and February 14, it increased to 0.7% on February 28. “This is the right time to take caution as we are seeing a jump in cases on average for the last two weeks compared to the first two weeks for the whole state. We have to remember that in Karnataka previously too we had seen a peak three months after the peak was reached in other parts of the country,” he said.