Spike in coronavirus cases at Shivajinagar worries health officials

BENGALURU: As 14 new coronavirus infections were reported in Shivajinagar’s Chandni Chowk locality on Saturday, taking the area’s tally to 30, one question troubled some health officials. Will Shivajinagar go the Padarayanapura way or is the situation under control?
Padarayanapura, whose demography is similar to that of Shivajinagar, has reported 54 cases so far, and faces the risk of a potential community transmission.
Health experts with the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) insisted that things were under control in in Shivajinagar.
“All the 30 cases reported in Shivajinagar are linked to 73 residents, who stay in an already sealed four-storeyed building in Chandni Chowk area. Unlike in Padarayanapura, the transmission of virus in Shivajinagar has happened from a single source, and primary and secondary contacts are confined to the building,” a BBMP official said.
The residents of the building came under the scanner after one occupant, a man, tested positive. The man, Karnataka’s Covid-19 patient number 653, worked in a hotel where a nurse with the infection had been quarantined. The nurse worked at a private hospital, where a doctor contracted the infection from a patient with severe acute respiratory syndrome. “Except the doctor and the nurse, all others who have turned positive for Covid-19 in Shivajinagar are from the same building and are neighbours of Patient number 653,” the official said.
Dr Siddappaji, a senior health official with BBMP, said 73 contacts of the patient had been under a watch. “Chandni Chowk Road was sealed, and we quarantined and tested the 73 contacts according to the protocol. The weekend spike in Covid-19 cases only confirms that our contract tracing and quarantine efforts have been effective,” Dr Siddappaji said.
But he said the situation would have be monitored closely. “These secondary contacts could have set off an infection trail,” he added.
As Shivajinagar has a much bigger network of lanes and bylanes and cheek-by-jowl tenements than Padarayanapura, BBMP will step up surveillance to identify people vulnerable to Covid-19, he said.
Buildings on and off Chandini Chowk Road are separated by barely a feet and every house has at least half a dozen residents, which makes it difficult to enforce social distancing, according to chief health officer Dr Vijayendra B.