From March 9 to May 31, the initial 84 days since the first coronavirus case was reported, Bengaluru recorded just 357 Covid-19 cases and Karnataka reported 3,221 infections. According to a report in The Times of India, the number of infections climbed post the reopening of inter-state travel in early May, with the cases seeing a sudden spike in the last 36 days until Monday.
To put things in perspective, a whopping 96% of the 10,561 infections in Bengaluru and 87% of 25,317 cases in Karnataka were recorded between June 1 and July 5. The total number of cases in Bengaluru increased from 357 to 4,555 between June 1 and 30. What is worrisome is that a significant number of infections were reported after June 15.
On June 20, Bengaluru surpassed the 1-000-mark and subsequently, it witnessed a surge of 154% taking the case toll to 4,555 on June 30.
In the ensuing six days, the infections climbed to 10,561. According to the ToI report, the surge in the last five days of June was because of an accounting error by the city's civic agency. But even if the error is set aside, Bengaluru was slated to record a huge number of cases and several health experts had cautioned that infections in the state would climax in the eight to 10 weeks from end June to August.
The estimation appears to hold true as the number of cases in the state is following the said pattern. The cases breached the 1,000-mark only on May 15 in Karnataka, but by the end of May, the cases stood at 3,221 cases, primarily because of the increase in the domestic returnees from states categorised as high-risk.
From there on, the number grew by three-folds, climbing to 15,242 by June 30. Karnataka has added 10,075 more cases at a rate of 1,679 cases per day, a majority of which was recorded in the state's capital.
However, it continues to do better than other states like Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu. Experts told News18 that while Bengaluru, a city with a population of 1.3 crore people, is still among the best-performing metros when it comes to absolute numbers, that's no reason to gloat.
"If you look at number of cases, we must compare with our own previous week rather than with other cities," eminent cardiologist Dr CN Manjunath, one of the advisors to the government, told News18.
On Monday, Covid-19 infections in Karnataka crossed the 25,000-mark, with the state reporting 1,843 new cases and 30 fatalities, taking the death toll to 401, the health department said. Of the 1,843 fresh cases reported, 981 were from Bengaluru urban alone while among the 30 deaths, 10 were from the capital city.
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