B'luru has highest number of active Covid cases | Economic Times

Even as most Indian cities are reporting a steep decline in Covid cases, India’s tech capital Bengaluru may be days away from this trend. Active cases in the city were 180,697 on Friday evening, which is the highest among Indian cities. In other cities including Delhi, Mumbai, Pune and Chennai, active cases are less than 50,000. From reporting 364,382 active cases on May 17, which was the highest ever for Bengaluru, the city has been seeing a steady decline in daily cases and also active cases in the past 10 days. The daily numbers have dropped from 20,000 in the first week of May to about 6,000 cases now, lifting hopes among healthcare administrators. Experts say the decrease in the daily case and active case counts will depend on the containment measures after the current lockdown is lifted. Giridhar R Babu, a member of Karnataka’s Covid technical advisory committee, said while the lockdown has slowed the speed of transmission, the lack of an effective mechanism to test and track large numbers of people has led to a slower decline.“The number of tests have drastically reduced. Tracking of contacts is not up to the mark. So obviously the virus transmission is happening within households and also during the morning hours when people are allowed to move freely,” Babu said. Experts also blamed variant B.1.617 for the rapid spread of infection and deaths in the city. According to virologist V Ravi, the double mutant (B.1.617) which was detected in just about 5-10% of community samples from Karnataka at the end of March, had shot up to 45% by the first week of May. The UK variant (B.1.1.7) too is said to have quickly spread in communities. 83045828The city’s civic body, the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP), is confident the infection is under control as reflected in the drop in daily cases and deaths. BBMP’s chief commissioner Gaurav Gupta said they are in complete control of the situation as they have increased oxygen and ICU beds. “We are seeing rising numbers of recoveries and discharges, and also decline in the number of new positive cases,” he said. While the daily case count appears positive, fatalities pose a concern. Despite a reduction in new cases, the city’s daily deaths hover between 250-350, accounting for over half of the state’s everyday fatalities. Babu reckoned it could be due to the “lag effect”. “There is a lag time in the surge in cases and the rise in deaths. It might take a few days for the decline in fatalities to reflect in the daily data,” he said.