While about 15 districts on an average in Karnataka have been consistently reporting zero cases for about a fortnight, Friday saw 18 districts with nil cases. Except Bengaluru Urban that reported 84 cases on Friday, the remaining districts have recorded cases in single digits.
However, the State’s Technical Advisory Committee, which reviewed the situation on March 16, has recommended that at this juncture it is prudent to continue implementation of compulsory face masking by adults in public areas including in cars and other transport vehicles.
In fact, following a prediction by researchers from IIT, Kanpur, that a fourth wave will hit India from June to October, the TAC has recommended sentinel surveillance, followed by genomic surveillance at the district and taluk hospitals. The committee has also recommended a sewage surveillance followed by genomic sequencing for early recognition of a new variant.
TPR less than 0.5%
Overall, the State has reported as many as 790 cases in the last seven days (prior to March 17) of which nearly 70% are from Bengaluru Urban. The seven-day running Test Positivity Rate (TPR) in the State as of March 17 remained as low as 0.32%. However, five districts reported a TPR that is higher than the State average with the highest in Chitradurga at 1.07%.
With 15 deaths in the last seven days on the whole, the seven-day running Case Fatality Rate (CFR) has stood at 0.95%. While Dakshina Kannada reported the highest CFR at 4.81%, Bengaluru Rural and Yadgir reported zero seven-day running CFR prior to March 17.
Sewage surveillance
Reviewing the situation, TAC said, “It is recommended that the Health Department should undertake sewage surveillance in Bengaluru city in collaboration with National Centre for Biological Sciences (NCBS) and look for increasing trends of infection and genomic surveillance for early recognition of emerging new variants. This is important in the current silent interval before the possible emergence of a fourth wave in Bengaluru / Karnataka.”
The sewage surveillance will be independent of testing levels and incidence of COVID-19, irrespective of whether there are symptomatic or asymptomatic cases in the population, the report stated.
TAC chairman M.K. Sudarshan, who asserted the need to wear a face mask and follow precautions despite the low incidence, said the third wave has ended, but not the pandemic. “The threat of COVID-19 is still not completely over. It is still not time to let our guard down. It is important that we continue COVID-appropriate behaviour for some more time,” he said.
C.N. Manjunath, nodal officer for labs and testing in the State’s COVID task force and member of the State’s Clinical Experts Committee, said although several districts are reporting sporadic cases, people should continue to take precautions, avoid crowding in less ventilated areas and non-essential travel.
Rise in other countries
“With reports of a surge in cases of SARS-CoV-2 in many countries such as China, Hong Kong, Singapore and South Korea, the threat still looms large. COVID-19 somewhere is COVID everywhere. Besides, commencement of all international flights from March 27 and movement of people around the world may favour spread of the virus,” he said.
“However, it all depends on the nature of the virus (variant), like its infectiousness and its ability to produce disease manifestations, including severity. The progress of vaccination has also helped in checking spread of the pandemic to a good extent. With vaccination opening up for children aged 12-14, parents should get their children vaccinated at the earliest,” Dr Manjunath added.
