City: Bengaluru

As Bengaluru continues to record over 25,000 COVID cases per day, how well is the city prepared to deal with the third wave? Does the city have enough hospital beds? Is BBMP able to track and support patients in home isolation? Here's a roundup. In the current wave, a smaller percentage of patients seem to need hospitalisation compared to the second wave last year. However, BBMP Chief Commissioner Gaurav Gupta has emphasised that the rising case count can increase the absolute numbers of people who require hospitalisation, which can lead to a shortage of beds. A BBMP press release on…

Policy making on public health issues requires data of many kinds. One such important data category is the number of birth and death registrations. For instance, the changes in birth registration allowed researchers to note the drastic drop in Karnataka’s fertility rate over the past 40 years. On the other hand, death registration has played a key role in identifying health trends in the state, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic. For citizens, birth and death certificates impact everything from admission into schools to entitlements like pension and other benefits. But what are the steps for registering and receiving birth/death certificates…

Daily COVID cases cross 20,000 Health Minister K Sudhakar on Friday said COVID cases have doubled in the state every three days during the third wave, much faster than the first two waves. The test positivity rate in Bengaluru has hit 20%. On Friday, the city recorded 20,121 cases and seven deaths. In the last 15 days alone, cases have increased by 32.65% in BBMP limits.  About one lakh tests are conducted every day in the city now. Experts and clinicians put forth the possibility of both Delta and Omicron co-circulating, which would mean that not all infections would be mild.…

Last month, in December 2021, a new skywalk came up on Outer Ring Road, near New Horizon College, Kadubeesanahalli, built by Embassy Tech Park. Coming as it did, after a long period of no new skywalks being opened, it threw the spotlight on the importance of skywalks. In the recent past, BBMP has built a number of skywalks across the city under the PPP (Public-Private Partnership) model, which affected the final decisions on their locations and designs. However the overhead pedestrian crossings on Outer Ring Road have become a reality, largely due to citizen activism.  The Sanjay Giri skywalk, between Akme…

Bengaluru has been steadily growing vertically with more and more highrise apartment complexes being constructed. Gardening enthusiasts lament the loss of green cover and space for growing their own flowers and vegetables. But green-thumbed residents of Ittina Anai apartment at Bellandur have shown that they can create their own paradise on their terrace. Apartment resident Aditya Rao, who is part of this terrace garden initiative, shares their story. Having grown up on a farm with lots of trees and abundant vegetable patches, apartment living was an adjustment. Whilst I craved to recreate our childhood experiences of living amongst greenery, space…

The COVID-19 pandemic, a global public health crisis resulting from a virus of potential animal origin has put the spotlight on the idea of One Health. One Health is an approach that is based on the fact that the health of people is closely connected to the health of animals and our shared environment. It brings focus on the interactions between people, animals, plants and the environment. Health risks have increased with trade globalisation, global warming and changes in human behaviour, providing pathogens multiple opportunities to colonise new territories and mutate. While zoonotic transmission (transmission of pathogens from animals to…

COVID restrictions The third wave of COVID has begun in the State, and Bengaluru is the epicentre because of the international airport, said Health Minister K Sudhakar. Due to rising COVID cases, weekend curfew has been imposed for two weeks; the curfew is effective from 10 pm on Fridays to 5 am on Mondays. All flyovers will be closed during these hours. However concessions were later made to allow law firms to operate on weekends. Night curfew has been extended for two weeks, starting January 7th. However, all essential services will continue. The government also decided to shut schools and…

(All persons and events mentioned in this piece are real and will be named when needed) August is the cruellest month. The month that reminds me of the repeated betrayal of the promises made when freedom dawned on our country at midnight in 1947. I remember the sunny morning in August 1990, when I was winging my way back to Bengaluru after a nine-year break. Seated next to me was the Chief of the Bureau of Industrial Costs and Prices, whose days were passed among the country’s leading industrialists. “You know you are going to the most corrupt city in…

The onset of COVID -19 cases and the subsequent lockdown that gripped the nation almost two years ago demonstrated the vast inequalities present in our society. While the pandemic disrupted the lives of every individual, the predicaments of already stigmatised/marginalised communities were aggravated. They have had to survive as financial burdens increased and opportunities for work deteriorated. India’s nine lakh sex workers, who were out of work, steeped in debt and at risk of contracting the virus, faced the brunt of the pandemic explicitly. The stigma and discrimination during the pandemic added to their existing challenges that included violence, abuse…

An independent project monitoring wastewater in 46 locations in Bengaluru has interesting data that could potentially work as a city-wide early warning system for COVID-19 outbreaks. The platform called Precision Health has been actively collecting and analysing wastewater samples from Bengaluru since April 2021 to detect and monitor the presence of SARS-CoV-2.  The data from Precision Health mirrors the peak of the second wave in May, and the recent uptick in cases, in terms of the percentage of samples that were positive for SARS-CoV-2. The current findings from wastewater testing show that at the ward level, around half the wards…