Bengaluru has the most active cases in the country

Bengaluru: As of Friday, Bengaluru has emerged as the district with the highest number of cases in the country just under 1.5 lakh. On Friday, the city added 16,662 fresh Covid cases which have taken the caseload to 1,49,624. As of Friday, Pune remains the second in the country with 1.1 lakh active cases. Delhi’s active cases are around 1 lakh, while it is 81,174 in Mumbai.

Bengaluru’s active cases are higher than all but four states- Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, Kerala and Karnataka itself. Bengaluru alone accounts for 70% of cases of the state which is higher than any other state.

As the cases are increasing in Bengaluru, health experts have called for establishing temporary care centres where patients can be stabilised in early states. Any case of severity can overwhelm the city’s health infrastructure.

Dr. Giridhar Babu, epidemiologist and member of Covid-19 technical advisory committee said that the daily spike in the city is likely to hit 25,000 cases by May 1. He said, “Even if 5% of them need critical care, our health system will be totally stretched.”

Rajendra Cholan P, special commissioner (BBMP) said that 90-90% of Covid patients are under home isolation and it is a challenge to monitor them. Health experts requested the state government to set up medical centres urgently in places like marriage halls and palace grounds to stabilise the patients so that they can be shifted to hospitals when beds are available after that.

BBMP is about to resume the distribution of Covid medical kits to needy patients as it was done last year during the first wave. Cholan said, “Distributing the medical kits to home isolated patients was stopped when the number of cases dropped in Bengaluru. There is not much demand for Covid Care Centres. In all the 12 CCCs, we have only 800 patients.”

Cholan said that even if the numbers were high, most of the cases were mild symptomatic cases or asymptomatic.

On observing the trajectory of the cases, Dr Giridhar Babu said that the state needs a complete lockdown, though it is the last resort. He said, “We should not repent later. Without reducing the overall number of cases, we can’t be redistributing the bed capacity to reasonable levels. Along with lockdown, we have to step up the bed capacity levels. Both need to be done.”

Dr S Sacchidanand, vice-chancellor of Rajiv Gandhi University of Health Sciences said, “The need is to ramp up existing critical care facilities and increase the number of oxygen beds as oxygen is a medicine.” He added, “The cases are expected to rise. Currently, the government can increase the bed utilisation in private medical colleges from 50% to 80%. It’s easier to strengthen the existing system than to create new facilities.”

Health Minister K Sudhakar said on Friday that at least 20,000 makeshift ICU beds will be available in the city in 15 days and 800 of them will have ventilators.