Ahead of the 10-day Dasara festival scheduled to start from October 17, Mysuru tops the district-wise chart on the number of active COVID-19 cases and deaths per million population in Karnataka.
Bengaluru, however, was not part of the analysis carried out by Jeevan Raksha, an initiative of Proxima, a management consulting firm, with the support of Public Health Foundation of India and Indian Medical Association.
As on October 10, exactly a week before Dasara festivities, the number of active cases per million population stood at 2,449 and the deaths per million population stood at 292. In comparison, the number of active cases and deaths per million across the State (excluding Bengaluru Urban) stood at 1,088 and 128, respectively.
In terms of active cases per million population, Mysuru was closely followed by Hassan with 2,408 and Bengaluru Rural with 2,306 cases. Dakshina Kannada and Dharwad came a close second and third in terms of deaths per million population with 287 and 280.
Though the State government has curtailed the Dasara celebrations by cancelling most of the events and imposing severe restrictions on the gathering even for the few programmes that are being held, Mysuru is considered to be one of the COVID-19 hotspots in the State with the district figuring in the third position in terms of positive cases per million population. With 13,836 positive cases per million population on October 10, Mysuru is next only to Udupi (16,328) and Ballari (13,946).
Also, the number of positive cases in Mysuru had increased from 25,086 on September 12 to 41,523 on October 10, which accounted for a moving growth rate of 66% against 50% in the rest of the State.
Similarly, the number of persons who had died due to COVID-19 in Mysuru had risen from 576 on September 12 to 875 on October 10, indicating a moving growth rate of 52% compared to 38% for the rest of the State.
Medical infrastructure
In view of the COVID-19 projections, convener of Jeevan Raksha Mysore Sanjeev pointed out to the demand for medical infrastructure that the rising number of cases will bring.
“When the number of positive cases go up, leading to more active cases, the mortality will also go up in the absence of medical infrastructure to meet critical cases,” he said. Along improving the medical infrastructure, Mr. Sanjeev said there should be effective containment management by deploying enough manpower to “trace, test and isolate.”