Despite panic, BBMP defends criteria to designate hotspots

The Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike on Wednesday defended a release appearing to designate 38 city wards as Covid-19 “hotspots” by calling it a precautionary move.

The civic body’s daily Covid-19 bulletin, on Tuesday night, contained new additions — two maps and a text chart indicating the hotspots in the city, which caused alarm and confusion among the public.

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BBMP Commissioner B H Anil Kumar said the classifications would help the Palike monitor contacts in the wards and in the surrounding neighbourhood. “This will also help us intensify primary and secondary tracing,” he explained.

While the bulletin triggered fears on social media that more areas in the city would be sealed, the commissioner denied such claims. “All the cases reported in the 38 wards are isolated cases (found) over a 28-day period. They (therefore) won’t be sealed,” he told DH.

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The Palike sealed “Bapuji Nagar (Ward 133) and Padarayanapura (Ward 135) since there was sharp spike in cases. It would have been hard for the people in these densely populated wards to protect themselves by isolation and social distancing.”

However, the hotspot data itself appeared to be incomplete.

Data incorrect?

Padarayanapura, for example, was missing from the map, even though it was sealed last week after it reported three positive cases.

Azad Nagar (Ward 141), another densely populated neighbourhood close to Padarayanapura, showed five positive cases, the BBMP data revealed.

The commissioner suggested that inclusion of Ward 141 in the document was probably an error. He said the author would have intended to put Ward 135 (Padarayanapura).

Citizens told DH they were confused about the point in declaring so many hotspots.

“Some of them have just one case,” said Advocate Vinay Srinivasa. “When you declare an area as a hotspot, it creates tension and alarm (among residents). It could make people set up ad-hoc barricades such as the ones seen in Bapuji Nagar. This would make it harder for emergency services to access the interiors.”

A senior BBMP official said the hotspots were identified based on an April 11 order, signed by additional chief secretary to the government Jawaid Akhtar. The circular defines a ward as a hotspot, if it reported “at least one Covid-19 positive case in the last 28 days”. Akhtar did not respond to queries to clarify the criteria’s in designating hotspots.