Bengaluru likely to witness 6,000 Covid-19 cases every day

Bengaluru: The city is likely to report more than 6,000 Covid-19 cases every day by the third week of April. This could lead to a shortage of beds in hospitals.

Giridhar Babu, an epidemiologist expressed his concern over the surging cases. He said that at the present rate, the city would record 6,500 cases each day by April 20 and the city’s medical systems will be flooded with patients in a few days. He told, “We need action now, not tomorrow.”

Bengaluru registered 18,075 cases from March 28 to April 3 and active cases rose from 15,882 to 26,544 during this period. Giridhar Babu said, “The reproductive numbers of the virus in the past few days have increased. Maharashtra is finding it hard to drive out asymptomatic patients from hospitals to tend to the needy. The government must come up with a strategic plan.”

Dr H Sudarshan Ballal, a member of Karnataka’ expert committee on Covid-19 showed no surprise in the cases mentioned by Babu. He said, ” The way the second wave is turning out, I think daily Covid-19 cases in Bengaluru will go beyond 6,000.” He further adds, “Lack of enforcement and public ignorance are major contributors. Though a total lockdown cannot be announced, authorities must impose some curbs.”

On the status of the status of the vaccination of the healthcare workers he said that vaccination for them should be made mandatory as many haven’t got the jab yet.

Dr Ravindra M Mehta, a senior consultant for pulmonology and interventional pulmonology, also a member of BBMP’s Covid-19 task force committee, said, “We have vaccinated parts of the population. All the government needs to do is to focus on resource allocation.”

BBMP chief commissioner Gaurav Gupta said that they are controlling the spread of the disease by prevention, enforcement and vaccination. He said, “We are vaccinating 25,000 people everyday, but would like the figure to touch 1 lakh. We’ll get there.” He also stated that initially private hospitals were to reserve 40 per cent of the beds for Covid patients, but now it has been revised to 20 per cent. They have also opened two Covid care centres and the third one is getting ready.