Polls did not cause Covid spike: Report

BENGALURU: The recently concluded bypoll had no impact on the rise in Covid-19 cases in the two assembly constituencies which saw several large gatherings during campaigning, according to a report submitted by the technical advisory committee.BBMP health officials noted that the test positivity rate (TPR) in Sira and RR Nagar was lower than the state TPR (2.15%) as on November 10, the report said. 

Testing was done in two phases and for all booth level officials, revenue and engineering staff, police, health workers, BMTC and other vehicle drivers and MCC team. People with comorbidities were also tested. 

In RR Nagar, 84 of 14,727 people tested positive (0.57%). This included 2,310 election officials of whom six tested positive (0.26%), 287 police officials of whom none tested positive, 12,417 citizens of whom 78 were tested positive (0.62%). In Sira constituency 103 of 15,874 people who were tested were found to be positive (TPR 0.65%). The technical advisory committee of the election commission and BBMP concluded that the elections had not resulted in more cases in these two constituencies, a BBMP official said.