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Bengaluru civic body to ramp up Covid tests amid sudden rise in cases

Mumbai | Updated on February 17, 2021

The city, on an average, had been reporting around 200 cases daily. This has spiked to 250 cases a day in the last two days.

Bengaluru civic body commissioner N Manjunath Prasad plans to ramp up the coronavirus testing in the city as Covid -19 cases continue to rise sharply, the News Minute reported.

Since Friday the number of coronavirus cases witnessed a sudden spike, and some areas have been declared Covid-19 hotspots.

Briefing press, Manjunath Prasad said: "Since the Covid-19 cases are increasing, the officials have been instructed to increase testing in places where more cases have surfaced. We currently have 141 Primary Health Centres and an additional 200 teams, making it a total of 341 teams to perform Covid-19 testing.”

“Put together, if each team can do 100 tests, we can conduct 34,000 tests per day. Currently, we are conducting 20,000 to 22,000 tests every day. We have issued orders to increase the number of Covid-19 tests," he added.

He further maintained that these hotspots could become super-spreaders if the Covid-19 protocols were not being followed properly.

The Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike officials, cited in the News Minute report, blamed travellers from Kerala for the sudden rise in cases.

"Around 70 per cent of the students who are studying in the nursing college, where over 40 Covid-19 cases were reported, are from Kerala," the Commissioner noted.

The announcement comes after two superspreader incidents on Saturday when 42 students at a nursing college tested Covid-19 positive. Furthermore, a total of 105 residents of a south Bengaluru apartment tested positive over Sunday and Monday, as per media reports.

Bengaluru, on an average, is reporting around 200 Covid-19 cases daily. This has spiked to 250 cases a day in the last two days.

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Published on February 17, 2021
Covid-19
Bengaluru
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