6 COVID Care Centres shut

The COVID Care Centre (CCC) at Bangalore International Exhibition Centre (BIEC) — touted to be one of the largest such facilities in the country — was officially closed by the State government on Tuesday. Poor admission was cited as the reason for shutting down of the centre.

While opening the centre in the last week of July, the State government had termed it one of the largest facilities in the country to treat mild and asymptomatic COVID-19 patients. It was embroiled in controversies over renting of beds, cots and others items.

Senior IAS officer Rajendra Kumar Kataria, who was also head of the task force of CCC, said that out of the 12 CCCs, six have been closed, including the ones at University of Agriculture Sciences and Bangalore University. “At BIEC, 3,800 to 4,000 people have availed the facilities. When the centre was operationalised, SoP on home isolation of COVID-19 positive people was not introduced. At that time, mild and asymptomatic patients were sent to CCC and others to hospitals. After guidelines came for home isolation, the number of people visiting CCC dropped. There are other factors too, such as private hospitals providing more beds and some hospitals using hotels to treat mild cases,” he said.