BENGALURU: At a time when the Covid-19 Technical Advisory Committee (TAC) has recommended to the State Government to ease lockdown only after the test positivity rate (TPR) falls below 5 per cent, 94 taluks in Karnataka have a double-digit TPR. What is more worrying is that 9 of the 94 taluks have a TPR of more than 30 per cent (Raibag in Belagavi, Doddaballapur in Bengaluru Rural, Tarikere and Narasimharajapura in Chikkamagaluru, Channagiri, Harihar and Honnali in Davanagere and Shivamogga and Bhadravathi in Shivamogga).
According to data compiled by the Karnataka State Council of Science and Technology, six taluks have a positivity rate between 25 and 30 per cent (Yelandur in Chamarajanagar, Koppa in Chikkamagaluru, Molakalmuru in Chitradurga, Sullia and Puttur in Dakshina Kannada and Shikaripura in Shivamogga).TNIE spoke to district health officials of the taluks with 30 per cent or more TPR to understand the reason for high cases. One common reason was migration and movement of people, especially those who returned to their towns and villages from Bengaluru.
Shivamogga District Health Officer (DHO) Dr Rajesh Suragihalli said, “Taluks like Shivamogga, Bhadravathi, Shikaripura and others within town limits have a high positivity rate. In May, 77 villages had high caseload and with containment measures in the past two weeks, this dipped to 23 villages, each having more than 20 cases. We have 490 containment zones now. During testing, we found that 70 per cent of those who tested positive were returnees from Bengaluru in April and May. From them, primary contacts also caught the virus.”
Similarly, Bengaluru Rural DHO Dr Thippeswamy said taluks in the district being semi-urban and in proximity to Bengaluru resulted in migration, leading to more cases.Chikkamagaluru DHO Dr D Umesh also blamed migration from Bengaluru and a few taluks having a high population as reasons for high TPR. “Taluks such as Raibag, Chikkodi, Hukkeri, Athani, Gokak and those close to Maharashtra border are seeing more cases owing to movement of workers, families and marriage parties between the two states,” Belagavi DHO Dr Shashikant Muniya said.When TNIE spoke to Davanagere DHO Dr Nagaraj, he said they have ramped up daily tests to over 6,000 and as a result, more people are testing positive.