BENGALURU: With the number of Covid-19 cases galloping every day, Karnataka has now joined Andhra Pradesh and Meghalaya at the top as regards the doubling rate of the disease. It is now taking only 10 days for the numbers double in the state, according to the state war room report as of July 21. Among other high prevalence states, the time taken is 21 days in Tamil Nadu, 23 days in Maharashtra and 29 days in Delhi.
Epidemiologist Dr Giridhar Babu, Professor and Head of Lifecourse Epidemiology at Public Health Foundation of India, pointed out that the doubling time will reduce further as Covid cases surge. “This is a reflection of our R-naught value, which represents the number of people each person can infect. Karnataka’s R-naught value is 1.31 at the moment and the goal is to bring it down to less than 1, which means there is no transmission from one person to another.
The doubling rate also indicates the population characteristics of how we are moving around and how we comply with social distancing and wearing of masks,” said Dr Babu, who is also a member of the Covid-19 technical advisory committee to the State Government. On June 20, Karnataka was at the 11th spot, compared to other states, wherein it took 16 days for the number of cases to double. On June 30, the state climbed to the 7th spot with the time reducing to 15 days. The situation declined further thereafter. On July 10, the state was at second spot with the doubling time at nine days.
Nodal officer for Covid testing in the state, Dr C N Manjunath, who is also the director of Jayadeva Institute of Cardiovascular Sciences and Research, said the doubling rate could be indicative of segmental community transmission. “One of the reasons is that there are pockets of segmental community transmission. In addition to this, the number of tests being done has gone up in the last 10-15 days from 15,000 a day to 35,000 a day. If we were observing higher rate of doubling with no increase in the number of tests, then it would be a problem. Here, however, we have ramped up testing,” Dr Manjunath explained. Medical Education Minister Dr K Sudhakar, who has not admitted to community transmission in Karnataka, said the state is conducting 17,296 tests per million population, which is one of the highest in the country.
DOUBLING RATE LOWEST IN YADGIR
“During the one-week lockdown in Bengaluru and some other parts of the state, we took several steps to ramp up testing, specially in containment zones. On July 21, for example, we conducted 43,904 tests. This is the main reason for the quick doubling rate.
We should also keep in mind that Karnataka had very less cases compared to other states until last month, which means the base number was comparatively less for calculating doubling rate,” Dr Sudhakar told TNIE. Also, 18 districts have doubling rates which are worse than the state’s as a whole.
The shortest duration is in Chikkamagaluru with five days and the longest duration is Yadgir with 30 days. Senior IAS officer Munish Moudgil, who is in charge of the state war room, said, “The number of cases are doubling as we see people stepping out without taking precautionary measures. The primary contacts of several positive patients have also been going out and not quarantining themselves.”