Bengaluru records 800 cases, HAL battling outbreak at airport

On Tuesday, the number of new cases fell to the lowest figure in five days, although the new numbers were still sizeable at 800 new cases. No new deaths were revealed.

According to the BBMP war room, the new cases were split across 57 wards, with Shantala Nagar, Chamrajpet, and Jayanagar registering the highest number of cases.

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Five employees of the Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) have tested positive at HAL Airport, according to the war room data.

In fact, HAL clarified that 12 employees had tested positive recently, of which one had died “due to an underlying condition”. The employee is said to have tested positive during a posthumous examination.

Gopal Sutar, the company’s spokesperson, said HAL has taken steps to ensure all Covid-19 guidelines are followed at its factories and offices.

“The HAL hospital is well equipped with beds reserved for patients showing Covid-19 symptoms. At workplaces, measures are taken to ensure social distancing, compulsory wearing of masks, complete and frequent sanitisation of entire working areas, and temperature monitoring of everyone who enters the premises,” he said.

A gender-wise breakdown of the cases reveals that 183 of the newly infected are in their forties. A further 175 are in their fifties and 174 are in their thirties. The large age grouping among females is 79 women in their fifties (a marked shift from the previous days, when most of the infected were in their twenties). Among males, the largest group of 125 are in their forties.

According to the state Covid war room, 61.4% of all Bengaluru Urban cases are asymptomatic, while 38.6% are symptomatic, as of July 6.

In terms of testing, BBMP said it had collected 4,162 swab samples on July 7 and that 4,162 samples had also been tested. This gives the city a daily positivity rate of 19.22% and an overall positivity rate of 8.52%. In comparison, on June 28, the city’s overall positive rate was a low 2.69%.

More containment zones

With the city now having a total of 11,361 Covid-19 cases out of which 9,395 are active cases, the number of containment zones have also spiked. As of July 5, there were over 1,400 street-based containment zones, about 180 Apartment-based containment zones and about 50 slum-based containment zones.

Among the other myriad wards that registered new cases was Bapuji Nagar, which had not registered any cases since April 28, when two patients were identified within the ward among the Tablighi Jamaat returnees.