The Indian Army has set up a 100-bed Covid Care Centre at Ulsoor in Bengaluru to help curb the spread of COVID-19 in the city. The Karnataka state government took on the responsibility of providing medical staff and equipment and the Army joined in with administrative support for maintaining high standards at the facility and ensuring best possible patient care, the Indian Army said in a statement.

"In this hour of need, the Indian Army has augmented the medical infrastructure of state administration by setting up a 100 bed Covid Care Centre in Ulsoor, Bengaluru," a statement by the Defence Ministry said. The COVID Care Centre will cater to mild symptomatic and asymptomatic Covid patients referred by Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike( BBMP) after bed allotment. 

On Saturday, Major General J V Prasad, General Officer Commanding, Karnataka and Kerala Sub-Area, handed over the facility to the state administration in presence of BJP's State Housing Minister V Somanna, BJP MP P C Mohan, Congress MLA Rizwan Arshad, and civic agency Chief Commissioner Gaurav Gupta.

Earlier, a viral WhatsApp forward had falsely claimed that the Indian Army had set up a 1000-bed hospital facility in Bengaluru and Mumbai. The forwarded message had used the details of the facility set up in Delhi last year to make the claim. But it was denied by the defence spokespersons in both Mumbai and Bengaluru. 

Bengaluru is currently reporting less than 10,000 COVID-19 cases a day and the state government has extended the lockdown in place by two more weeks till June 7. Bengaluru Urban district reported 8,214 infections and 200 fatalities on Saturday while the state reported over 31,000 COVID-19 cases. The city has so far reported over 11 lakh infections and 10,856 deaths since the onset of the pandemic in March 2020.