With another day of close to a thousand cases on Monday, Bengaluru now has 10,561 COVID-19 cases out of which 8,859 are active. On Monday alone the Karnataka capital recorded 981 new cases.
Bengaluru is one of the only seven cities in India to have crossed the 10,000 mark and it still has the lowest number of COVID-19 case when it comes to metro cities, the growth rate in the city is a matter of concern.
In the three days till Sunday Bengaluru saw a 15.7 per cent increase in COVID-19 cases while the corresponding figures for Delhi stood at 2.6 per cent, Chennai at 2.9 per cent and Mumbai 1 per cent. Bengaluru has also the lowest recovery rate among big cities at – 14.7 per cent compared to Delhi’s 71.7 per cent, Chennai’s 62 per cent and Mumbai’s 66.1 per cent
The current situation in Bengaluru is in sharp contrast to where the city was just three weeks ago when it was not even the worst-hit region in Karnataka. However, once the new infections started spiking, it has been a scene of chaos in the IT city. It has reached a point where one of the state’s ministers claimed that there is community transmission
We have reached a point where it is difficult for the district authorities to restrain it, even though we are trying to restrain it. Somewhere the situation is going out of hand,” minister Madhuswamy had said.
Over the past few weeks, there have been several complaints about the lack of ambulance and hospital beds for patients. In the past few days alone there have been several instances where COVID-19 patients died due to the delay in getting an ambulance or being denied admission in hospitals.
On Tuesday, the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palika (BBMP), said it will add more ambulances after it arranged 250 vehicles to transport patients. “More vehicles (ambulances and Tempo Traveller vehicles) will be added this week,” BBMP Commissioner BH Anil Kumar said.
By Monday, the civic body had arranged 250 ambulances and tempo traveller vehicles in the city’s eight zones of Bengaluru East, Bengaluru West, Bengaluru South, Rajarajeshwarinagara, Dasarahalli, Yelahanka, Mahadevapura and Bommanahalli. Among the 250 vehicles, 71 are ambulances and 179 tempo traveller vehicles.
The city is also facing a shortage of trained medical and paramedical staff and the government is trying to rope in final year students and others to join efforts to battle the virus.
