Covid-19: In Karnataka it is Not Just About Bengaluru

Karnataka’s Health Minister earlier this week said: "The cases [in the state], I am sure 100% will only go up in the next two months. One can keep claiming that it's because of the government's negligence or irresponsibility of the ministers or that cases are up because of a lack of coordination among the ministers. All of these allegations are far from the truth. Only God can save us from coronavirus.” It was prompted by the rising numbers in the state.

On Thursday Karnataka became the fourth-worst affected state in the country with more than 47,000 confirmed cases so far. Yet Karnataka Health Minister B. Sriramulu’s desperation in invoking divinity rather than science to control the pandemic, is in sharp contrast to the BJP’s government’s initial response to the pandemic which was praised by the media. Even as recently as the first week of July, a visiting central team appreciated the government for its “contact tracing and measures to create a database of people with co-morbidities and other vulnerabilities.”

Karnataka was being lauded for its control over the cases until unlockdown 1.0 began in the month of June, which caused a rapid increase in cases in the subsequent days and weeks. The crisis in Benguluru Urban district all but destroyed that image. What has become evident is the breakdown in the testing, tracing, tracking, and treatment of patients which was the only way to keep the pandemic under control. The Hindu reported that “From June 1 to 22, the source of transmission (for Bengaluru Urban district, which includes BBMP) was not determined in approximately 62.76% cases. In this period, the health bulletin puts the total of cases reported at 1,050, of which source of transmission was not ascertained in 659 cases.”

What has become evident since the end of the first lockdown is that there has been no “model”, even in the capital of the state, to follow in containing the pandemic.

Karnataka is a good example of the need for better district-wise and sub-district-wise monitoring to control the spread of the novel coronavirus.

The Coastal districts of Dakshina Kannada and Udupi are witnessing rising number of new cases, and so are the northern districts of Kalaburgi and Yadgir.

Having got Bengaluru horribly wrong, the government’s has to contend with the rising caseload in coastal districts and the northern districts, many of them with woefully inadequate health infrastructure. The industrious coastal districts have been the hub of medical education and thus in better shape to withstand the onslaught of the coronavirus.

Emerging  Hotspots

The contiguous coastal districts of Dakshina Kannada and Udupi have seen the number of cases jump as a result of returning migrants from the Gulf and Maharashtra. Yadgir and Kalaburagi districts too have seen their caseload numbers jump sharply when migrants from Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat and Goa returned.The emerging  hotspot the contiguous coastal districts of Dakshina Kannada and Udupi have seen the number of cases jump as a result of returning migrants from the Gulf and Maharashtra. Yadgir and Kalaburagi districts too have seen their caseload numbers jump sharply when migrants from Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat and Goa returned.

While Karnataka boasts of  being a state with some of the highest testing rates, a closer look at the ratio of the total tests conducted to total new cases over the past week district-wise shows that Benguluru Urban is a whopping 41%, but Dharwad (59%), Ballari (49%), and Kodagu (47%) are worse off. Districts across Karnataka nevertheless have disturbingly high tests to new cases ratio. Topping the list is Tumkuru district, but the number of tests conducted are just 1,257 of which 742 cases have been confirmed. The bottom of list is Chamarajanagara which has a tests to new cases of just 3%.

Karnataka is facing an enormous problem in Bengaluru Urban district, but is it because of “better” testing that we know better about it? Karnataka’s stress on war rooms and virtual dashboards apart, like Maharashtra, it concentration on containing the situation in the capital city is not enough to contain the pandemic on a state-level.

With more than 20 districts showing very high tests to new cases ratio, Karnataka needs to be doing a lot more testing, tracing and tracking, apart from treating patients, than is currently doing.

Health Minister B Sriramulu must have have missed the words that adorn the portal of Vidhana Soudha: Government Work is God’s Work, so instead of waiting for divine intervention, he has is task cut out for him.