On Saturday, Bengaluru recorded 94 more COVID-19 patients, taking the total number of active patients in Bengaluru Urban to 621. While 1076 people have been discharged in Bengaluru from the time the pandemic started, 61 deaths too have been reported.
With cases rising, the containment zones in the city too have gone up. As of Saturday, there are 279 containment zones in the city, including 31 apartments in the city. If a person living in an apartment gets the infection, the BBMP normally marks the person is living in, one floor above and below as containment zones.
Containment zones are usually marked so for a period of three weeks. The latest containment zones will be declared inactive after 3 weeks, except if new cases are found in the area.
In it’s daily bulletin, BBMP has stopped giving names of all containment zones and instead only gives details of number of zones. As of Saturday, the South zone has the most number of containment zones. While the South zone has 81 containment zones, East came next with 45 zones and West with 38 containment zones. Bommanahalli has 38 containment zones, Mahadevapura has 31, RR Nagara has 12 and Dasarahalli has 9 containment zones.
The city has now moved away from the concept of marking entire areas as “containment zones” and has restricted these zones to a particular street, building or a house.
Most of the places which have been deemed as containment zones have reported only one case of coronavirus in that area.
As of Saturday, 196 of the 621 patients in Bengaluru, who are currently in isolation, have ILI (Influenza like symptoms), while 107 of them have SARI. The number of ILI and SARI cases can be attributed to the increased number of tests for patients with these illnesses.
Like COVID-19, ILI and Severe Acute Respiratory Illness (SARI) are respiratory infections. They also have symptoms such as fever, and cough being common. However, while COVID-19 is caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus, ILI and SARI can be caused by a range of viruses including H1N1, H7N9, other coronaviruses such as MERS and in some cases bacteria as well.
An increase in the number of ILI cases turning positive for SARS-CoV-2, is a possible indicator that the virus is manifesting in more individuals in less severe manners. This is why anyone who develops symptoms of ILI should closely monitor themselves and get medical attention as soon as possible, if any of their symptoms worsen or don’t subside on their own.