BENGALURU: To prevent people from escaping after being informed about their Covid-positive status, the BBMP has come up with a new strategy. Henceforth, Health Department officials will not inform a person, who has undergone a test, whether he/she is positive or negative. “Only a message will go out to them stating, ‘Your report has come, please come and collect it’,” said Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike Commissioner B H Anil Kumar on Friday.
Once the person comes to collect the report, he/she will be kept back at hospital if positive or sent back home if negative. The department has come across several cases of people going missing when health officials go to pick them up, which increases the risk of the virus spreading, he said.
There have also been instances of people under institutional quarantine giving wrong phone numbers and keeping their mobiles switched off. Some people also give wrong addresses. The department will now take alternative contact details for better communication and tracing,
he said. The number of cases is rising in the city because of people coming from other states and ILI and SARI patients testing positive. However, these cases are sporadic and not in clusters like it was in Padarayanapura, Hongasandra,
Mangamanapalya and Shivajinagar. Explaining the biggest spike of 42 cases in the city a few days ago, Kumar said, “It was an accumulated total of previous five days. Some reports came late because of the backlog. Cases are rising because of more testing. Not just the government, people too should play a vital role,” he said.