BENGALURU: Bengaluru's civic body is noticing a week-on-week increase of 250 per cent in daily new COVID cases, but lesser hospitalisation. But outpatient departments (OPDs) of many hospitals, both government and private, are seeing a big rush, making it difficult to manage crowds at some hospitals. Doctors said that in Bengaluru, almost every household has one or more people with symptoms of cold, cough, fever and chills.
On Monday and Tuesday, hospitals like KC General and Bengaluru Medical College and Research Institute saw big queues of patients to see doctors at OPDs. While many had COVID symptoms, all of them were not COVID-positive, the doctors said.
"There was a big queue of people, mainly youngsters, waiting to see me with complaints of cough, cold and high fever with chills. While many did turn positive for COVID, several just had flu. There is a viral flu too doing the rounds panicking people," said a doctor from KC General.
He agreed that the healthcare system will be stretched if people panic and rush to OPDs.
Dr Poorna Chandra KS, Consultant and Head of Medical Gastroenterology at Sparsh Hospitals, said that majority of the cases now are of common flu. Fever and sore throat are symptoms common to both flu and COVID. "These cases are not progressing to a phase where they require hospitalisation," he said.
The scene is no different at private hospitals, said Dr Jagadish Hiremath, chairman of Aasra Hospital. Many who had come to their hospital with non-COVID complaints were found to be COVID positive when tested.
"Bengaluru is a city with a dense population.This makes it hard to maintain social distance at all times because of which we see an increase in cases," he reasoned. Dr Poorna Chandra said that a lot of people with symptoms of cold, fever and sore throat are not getting themselves tested.