BENGALURU: While Bengaluru Urban district continues to have the highest Covid-19 active case load in the state, rural areas in many other districts are reporting a high number of active cases compared to the urban areas.According to the Covid-19 State War Room data, districts like Hassan, Tumakuru, Belagavi and Dakshina Kannada are seeing a high number of active cases in rural areas in the last 14 days compared to the urban areas in those districts.
According to the data, Tumakuru has 8,336 active cases in rural areas compared to 2,087 urban cases. Similarly, 7,567 active cases were reported in Hassan rural, compared to 2,452 in urban areas, while Belagavi reported 5,421 active cases in rural areas. Other districts like Dakshina Kannada, Chikkamagaluru, Chamarajanagar, Chikkballapur, Udupi and Uttara Kannada too are seeing a similar trend.
However, districts like Dharwad, Ballari and Mysuru are reporting more active cases in the urban areas.
Hassan District Health Officer Dr Satish Kumar told The New Indian Express that most of the cases in rural areas are those who returned from Bengaluru due to the lockdown.“As the cases started to increase, students and others working in Bengaluru returned to their villages in Hassan. However, they were not traced as the focus then was on urban areas.
By the time they developed symptoms and tested positive, their family members had already got infected, contributing to more cases. We set up 70 teams to conduct door-to-door surveys and identify, trace and isolate the patients. Those who had mild infection were moved to Covid Care Centres (CCC). Meanwhile, we also alerted the village panchayat task forces, who, along with their teams, visited villages, conducted tests and monitored Covid-positive patients.
Over 1,500-odd villages still have active cases. However, it is slowly declining.”An official from Belagavi pointed out that it is difficult to convince people to get admitted in CCCs as they prefer home isolation. “The guidelines clearly state that those infected in rural areas should be moved to CCCs. However, in the initial days, not many adhered to the rule. But now, the situation is improving,” the official said.Meanwhile, Tumakuru District Health Officer Dr M B Nagendrappa said that the cases are declining in the district. “We used to see over 2,000 cases each day. However, the number has now fallen to 400. Cases are decreasing even in rural areas. We have increased testing to over 8,000 people each day,” he said.