The COVID-19 situation in Bengaluru has seen a marginal deterioration between Sunday, August 29 and Saturday, September 4 when reviewed on a week-on-week basis. However, although the number of positive cases has reduced, the number of COVID-19 deaths, test positivity rate, case fatality rate and hospital admissions have marginally increased, when compared to the previous week.
In the August 29-September 4 period, Bengaluru saw 2,195 positive cases, which is lower than 2,250 cases recorded between August 22 and 28. The test positivity rate (percentage of samples that turn positive for the virus per 100 tests), on the other hand, rose marginally from 0.54% to 0.56%. TPR is considered to be a better metric of gauging the infection rate compared to real case numbers, according to experts.
Incidentally, the number of tests conducted in Bengaluru also dropped below the 4 lakh mark (for the week) for the first time in more than seven weeks. While 4,13,519 tests were conducted between August 22 and 28, a total of 3,92,430 samples were tested between August 29 and September 4.
The number of COVID-19 deaths recorded in the week ending September 4 was 41 compared to 24 deaths recorded in the week prior. This has led to the rise in the case fatality rate (CFR) from 1.07% recorded in the week ending August 28 to 1.87% in the week ending September 4. CFR is the percentage of fatalities per 100 COVID-19 cases.
More worryingly, the number of hospital admissions in Bengaluru city under the state government quota, which has been reducing since mid-July, rose by 51% last week. A total of 124 patients were admitted under the government quota in the August 29-September 4 period, compared to 82 patients admitted in hospitals in the week prior. This breaks the trend of a drop in hospital admissions under the state government quota in the city over the last three weeks. Under the present arrangement, a total of 2,086 hospital beds are available for COVID-19 care.
However, the number of vaccines administered daily in the city has seen much-needed improvement. In the week ending September 4, Bengaluru administered 92,000 plus vaccine doses more than the previous week. While the number of vaccines given in the week ending September 4 was 8,06,802, the number of jabs given the previous week was 7,14,673, which is a 12.89% increase.