BENGALURU: After a month and 13 days, Bengaluru’s active caseload has fallen below the 10,000-mark, standing at 9,955 cases on Wednesday. The capital city’s share of the active caseload was a massive part of the entire state’s active case numbers throughout the third wave -- even more than what it recorded in the previous two waves of the pandemic.
The last time the city’s active case numbers were below 10,000 was on January 3 when it was 9,575, at a time when the third wave had just begun, and a massive surge, propelled by the Omicron variant of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, saw the active cases go up to 2,31,833 on January 23 at the peak of the third wave of the pandemic.
The decline in active cases in Bengaluru soon followed. From January 24 till date, the number of active cases has been rapidly falling, except on January 26, 30 and 31, when there was an increase in the active caseload. The active cases fell below the 1 lakh-mark on February 2 at 92,469, below the 50,000-mark on February 5 at 45,742, below 20,000 on February 11 at 18,229, and below 10,000 on Wednesday to 9,955.
The rapid and huge fall in the number of active cases has been characterized by massive margins in percentage points, ranging from 21.57 per cent drop on February 1 to 9.24 per cent drop on February 13.
However, active cases have never fallen below 4,000 between the second and third wave of the pandemic, with 4,833 being the lowest number as recorded on November 30. Between the first and second waves, the active cases in the city had fallen to a low of 3,800 cases on January 30, 2021, after which it rapidly rose due to the Delta variant of the virus, known to be much more severe than the Omicron, although the infection spread of the latter was 70 per cent higher than the former.
Statewide, the active caseload has fallen from a third wave high of 3,62,487 on January 24 to 23,284 on Wednesday. It dropped below the 1 lakh-mark on February 6, and in ten days further dropped to the current figure -- highlighting the lower severity of the Omicron and its sub-lineages.