Bengaluru: Migrants pushing Covid cases up in Mahadevapura zone

BENGALURU: The Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) has identified 102 containment zones in Bengaluru and Mahadevapura, South, and East zones account for 22 each. Civic officials say the rise in infections is due to a large migrant population.
While Mahadevapura accounts for 101 cases — the highest — East has 79 and South 71. Data accessed by TOI shows there are more containment zones in apartment complexes than individual houses in the zone.

“The number of people travelling from other states like West Bengal, Maharashtra, and Kerala to Mahadevapura is very high.These travellers live in apartments,” said Venkatachalapathi, BBMP joint commissioner, Mahadevapura.
On the other hand, testing has been ramped up from 6,000 to 9,000 tests per day and this could be one reason for the surge in the zone, since it helps identify asymptomatic positive cases, Venkatachalapathi said. Horamavu, Bellandur, Hagadur, Hudi and Doddanekkundi are the wards in Mahadevapura where cases are rising.
However, in South and East zones, infections are rising in individual residences. Citing the example of BTM Layout, Jayanagar, JP Nagar, and Kormangala, a senior health official from South zone said most of those who are contracting the infection are students and employees returning from other states.
“They may have carried negative RT-PCR reports which are not older than 72 hours when they arrived in the city, but that does not mean they could not have contracted the infection during travel,” the official said.
With the recent outbreak of a cluster case in a nursing college in Horamavu, Gaurav Gupta, BBMP chief commissioner has decided to increase testing and also stringent enforce safety protocol in containment zones.
“We are seeing a rise in clusters. With increased testing, we can quickly identify those who are infected and control the spread in the early stages,” said Gupta.
“BBMP officials are monitoring the health of those in institutional quarantine. We are also ensuring that educational institutions cautiously handle the Covid cases.”