Bengaluru’s Covid case doubling rate is 5x the national average

Bengaluru: When India's coronavirus doubling rate has reduced to 20 days, Bengaluru is seeing a reverse trend due to a sudden surge in cases in the last two weeks.

The city's case-doubling rate now stands at four days — five times the country's average and and more than three times Karnataka's rate of 14 days.

Home to about a sixth of the state's population, Bengaluru was reporting much fewer cases than other big cities till mid-June. The total Covid positive cases as on June 15 was 725, with a doubling rate of 15 days, same as that of the state at the time, according to data from the Karnataka government’s war room. Nationally, the case doubling rate as on June 15 was 18 days.

At present, only Haveri district (three days) has a faster doubling rate than Bengaluru.

The city has reported 5,290 coronavirus cases till Wednesday, accounting for more than one-third of Karnataka’s caseload. The rise in cases has also resulted in fewer recoveries and discharges. Only 13% of patients in Bengaluru city have been discharged, putting enormous pressure on medical facilities.

The state government and the city administration seem to have been caught off guard. According to health department officials, they had projected 10,000 active cases in the state by mid-July, but that projection is likely to be breached sooner. As on Wednesday, the state had 4,649 active cases.

“Going by the current growth, where cases reported are close to 1,000 (daily) in Bengaluru alone, the city itself could have 10,000 active Covid cases by mid-July,” an official said.

The steep surge in cases has pushed the state government and the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike to struggle to provide beds and treatment facilities. Although the government is expecting that additional beds made available to treat symptomatic patients at private hospitals and medical colleges will ease the burden to some extent, Covid-care centres to treat asymptomatic patients are not ready yet.


As on Monday, total beds allocated in Covid-care centres in Bengaluru was 608 and all of them were occupied. Only two centres — Haj Bhavan and Sri Sri College of Ayurveda Science and Research Hospital — are functional. The government has yet to open the Covid-care centre at Koramangala Indoor Stadium.

“We will add more beds in hotels, stadiums and other such facilities to treat Covid patients,” said Tushar Girinath, who monitors bed allocation in hospitals and Covid-care centres.