Karnataka does math for contingency plan

BENGALURU: The Karnataka government’s initial estimation on Covid-19’s impact shows the state might report about 87,000 positive cases, of which over 18,000 could be from the capital.

The government has projected these numbers based on the outbreak pattern in three worst-affected countries, to help prepare a contingency plan and get the facilities and manpower ready. A senior state government official called this the worst-case scenario.

The Covid-19 contingency plan that ET has seen shows that as much as 0.15% of Bengaluru’s population may get the infection. While other “hotspot” districts may report infection in 0.14% of their population, the statewide figure could be 0.11%. These speculations were made before the central government announced a nationwide lockdown on Tuesday. Deputy chief minister CN Ashwath Narayan had told the legislative council on Tuesday that the state would have to brace itself to handle 1 lakh coronavirus cases. Earlier, Narayana Health founder Devi Shetty had warned that the state could record about 80,000 cases.

“The initial estimation has been done by consulting subject experts and based on the outbreak pattern in three worse-affected countries. These figures do not necessarily reflect ground reality,” the senior official who is monitoring the Covid-19 situation in the state said.

The state disaster management authority that has prepared the contingency plan to deal with the situation has asked district authorities to work on the estimation based on field realities and plan logistics accordingly. “We want to keep this high estimation to prepare in the worstcase scenario,” the official said.

Based on the Covid-19 positive cases reported in the first few weeks, the state government has identified nine districts as “hot spots”. Another 12 districts have been put under the A category and nine under the B category. The districts that are tagged as Covid-19 “hot spots” are: Bengaluru Urban, Bengaluru Rural, Kalaburagi, Chikkaballapura, Mysuru, Kodagu, Dharwad, Dakshina Kannada and Belagavi.

According to the initial projection, of the 87,000 potential cases, 13,000 (15%) may require hospitalisation and 4,360 may need ICU facility. The preparation to get necessary medical and paramedical staff, lab technicians, hospitals, isolation wards and fever clinics are done based on these numbers.

As per the projection, the state needs to identify 327 supervised isolation centres with 200 beds each, which implies that the state government has to keep 65,400 isolation beds ready.

Revenue secretary (disaster management) TK Anil Kumar said the focus now was on implementing the Centre’s disaster management guidelines in letter and spirit. “Besides putting health facilities in place, we are also working out strategies to ensure steady supply of essentials,” he said.