Having recorded rampant violations of COVID-19 protocols in Rajarajeshwarinagar and Sira, where bypolls are being held on Tuesday, the district administration of Bengaluru Urban and Tumakuru are now gearing up to ramp up testing once polling process is completed.
Health Commissioner Pankaj Kumar Pandey said the district administration — local Deputy Commissioner and the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) Commissioner — have been authorised to take a call on intensifying testing in these constituencies.
Tumakuru District Health Officer (DHO) M.B. Nagendrappa said they were planning to intensify testing and also conducting random tests in Sira to identify and isolate new cases.
Pointing out that ever since campaigning began in Sira, although no noticeable rise has been recorded in the number of cases, there are chances of the spread after the incubation period. Incubation period is the time between the exposure to the virus and the display of symptoms. This can be one to 12 days and can even go up to 14 days.
BBMP Commissioner N. Manjunath Prasad, who is also the District Election Officer for Rajarajeshwarinagar, said testing would be ramped after voting. Speaking to the media after inspecting the mustering centre at Rajarajeshwarinagar, Mr. Prasad said that since the area had witnessed a lot of crowding in the past few days, the number of positive cases in the zone had also comparatively increased. “Trends show that there has been an increase in the number of cases, in the past few days, on the outskirts of the city as well,” he said.
As many as 14 cases have been filed in various police stations in the Assembly segment under the Disaster Management Act for violation of COVID-19 norms while campaigning. Earlier, to ensure the bypoll campaign does not lead to the spread of COVID-19, the civic body deployed additional marshals in the nine wards in R.R. Nagar segment.
According to BBMP COVID-19 War Room data, R.R. Nagar zone, which also includes Bengaluru South taluk, had 4,706 cases as of November 1. Between October 24 to November 1, the zone reported 1,245 new cases.
