Out of the 10,561 coronavirus cases in Bengaluru, health officials are unaware of how a whopping 84% of the patients contracted Covid-19. According to a report in The Times of India, the health department's data has revealed that contact tracing has been unsuccessful as the origin of 8,836 Covid-19 infections is not known.
Other districts have been mentioning whether a Covid-19 individual had a certain travel history or is a primary or secondary contact of an infected patient, in Bengaluru, however, the detail for most infections says: 'contact under tracing' since June 26, the day around which the city started witnessing a daily surge in cases.
A senior IAS officer told ToI that this could be a strong indication of community transmission, where ascertaining the source of infection is a challenge but added that the government is studying the situation and would act accordingly.
"Another probability could be data tabulation failure, but this seems remote,” the officer was quoted as saying.
Top health officials, working with the city's civic agency, told ToI that two months ago the number of infections were less and its origin could be traced easily. They said that there were just three categories, international travellers, inter-state travellers and symptomatic cases. An official said that interstate and inter-district travellers comprised around 75% of the infections and the remaining were symptomatic cases that became positive owing to primary contact.
With curbs being eased, it is becoming increasingly difficult to trace the origin of the infections owing to people moving more freely. The official said that they would usually spend close to four hours with a Covid-19 patient in order to ascertain how they caught the viral infection, but now, it has become a challenge.
Meanwhile, medical superintendent of CV Raman Hospital, Dr M Radha Krishna told the publication that the government was dealing with the situation well and added that the infections might go up drastically but once the virus reached "mutation period", the spread would slow down and individuals would start developing herd immunity.
A senior medical officer, giving the example of a 51-year-old asymptomatic patient, said that the man stays with his wife and children and has been only working from home, and neither he nor his wife had gone out of the house.
"His 19-year-old used to go out to purchase groceries, but the man tested positive. His son was negative. It’s hard to identify the source in such cases,” the medical officer was quoted as saying.
On Tuesday, Karnataka recorded 1,498 new COVID-19 cases and 15 fatalities, taking the total number of cases to 26,815 and the death toll to 416, the health department said.
The day also witnessed 571 patients getting discharged after recovery, even as 279 patients in the state are undergoing treatment at Intensive Care Units, news agency PTI reported. Of the 1,498 cases reported on Tuesday, 800 were from Bengaluru urban alone.
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