Experts see early signs of impending surge as Bengaluru logs 400 new Covid cases

Bengaluru on Wednesday broke a 15-week trend as it recorded 400 new Covid-19 cases, with experts expressing concern that this may represent the early beginnings of a surge. 

The last time such numbers were recorded was on September 15, when 462 cases were reported. Municipal sources said that the abrupt high numbers suggest an Omicron influence on infections.

However, the jury is still out on whether the new coronavirus variant is driving all the infections in the city, said Dr C N Manjunath, a member of Karnataka's Covid-19 Task Force. 

“The genomic results are still pending. Now, samples from even non-travellers are being sent for sequencing and we will very soon know what is driving this spate of infections,” he said.

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Nevertheless, he pointed out that the rising case numbers are the early signs of an impending surge. “The virus seems to have a circadian pattern whereby it starts to spread more from December to February. Most of the cases are still being driven by Delta and this will continue for the next three to four weeks when Omicron will become dominant,” he said.

The nationwide evidence appears to be mounting that the numbers will continue to rise from this point onwards. Delhi has seen a surge: 496 cases were reported on Tuesday, in comparison to 30 cases per day being recorded a month ago. In Mumbai, 2,510 cases were recorded on Wednesday, which is 82% more than Tuesday.

Even as samples sent for genomic sequencing from cluster cases and the general public are awaited, some doctors are already reporting a rise in Covid-19 cases and people with mild symptoms. Among them is Dr Raghu J, an Internal Medicine and Infectious Disease Specialist at Sakra World Hospital who has seen four Omicron confirmed cases to day, three of whom were Delhi returnees.

“From what I have seen, the cases were either asymptomatic or they have a mild fever, mild throat irritation and a running nose. Only in the case of an elderly traveller, a 76-year-old Delhi returnee, mild lung infection was noted,” Dr Raghu said.

He added that there has been an increase in Covid-19 cases coming to the hospital compared to previous months, and specified that these people have mild to moderate symptoms. Barring a handful who partook in interstate travel, none have a travel history. “Of course, there is no genomic confirmation yet about which variant they have been infected with,” he said.

Data from the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) also shows that there has been a slight increase in hospitalisation compared to November. Some 108 hospitalisations happened this month to date, compared to 68 between November 1 and 28. The BBMP said the rise was due to the inclusion of confirmed Omicron patients.

Nevertheless, the occupancy of HDU beds this month was 17 on average per day compared to 10 in November and eight for ICU/ICU-V beds compared to six the month before. The 400 cases in the city comprise some 70.6% of the 566 total cases announced by the health authorities.

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