Think about it before you go without a mask, Bangalore

Bangalore reported 5,012 COVID-19 cases in a single day on Tuesday: a new high and low for the city that is struggling to keep its covid numbers in check. For the past few days, Bengaluru has consistently recorded the maximum number of cases compared to other cities in India. Many states are registering fewer cases than Bengaluru, which is embarrassing for a city that once prided itself on effectively tackling covid.

Globally, New York currently reports about 933 cases a day, while Sao Paulo has 677 cases, London has 1,000 cases, Moscow has 4,082 cases, while Pune, India’s hardest hit city, has reported about 1,200. cases per day. This makes Bengaluru one of the cities most affected by covid in the world today.

However, N Manjunatha Prasad, Commissioner, Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) was quick to deny that the city’s numbers were peaking. “The increase in Tuesday’s figures was due to the fact that, on Monday, the cases in Bengaluru had dropped to 2,189 because certain data was not added to the ICMR list and the cumulative figures were released on Tuesday. So we have an inflated figure on Tuesday. Otherwise, Bengaluru records around 4,000 to 4,500 cases a day. ”Still, Bengaluru’s numbers are the highest in India, surpassing Delhi, Mumbai and Pune in terms of daily recorded cases.
Covid’s state war room chief Munish Moudgil said the spike in numbers is because Bengaluru was running the highest daily tests. “Mumbai and Chennai are doing about 13,000 tests a day. If Bengaluru did 13,000 tests, our daily cases would be less than 1,500. But the idea is not to reduce the tests to falsely reduce the daily cases. Bengaluru deserves great credit for performing the highest daily RT PCR tests to identify positive covid cases and save lives, ”he said. According to him, Bengaluru was conducting 40,000 tests (including 15,000 antigen tests). However, according to data from the BBMP war room, Bengaluru was testing 30,000 to 33,000 people per day.

The well-known epidemiologist R. Giridhar Babu said: “What really matters is whether the health system is overloaded or if critically ill patients have increased.”

Manjunath SK, a technology expert, echoes what the most sensitive Bengalis say: “The numbers are the direct result of people relaxing, masking and distancing themselves socially. Even stores have stopped monitoring people’s temperatures and dispensing disinfectants. If this continues, we will touch 10,000 cases a day. ”