Ten of the 198 wards in the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) areas have not registered new Covid-19 cases in the last 10 days, according to data from the BBMP. The test positivity rate in the city stood at 0.58 percent and has been consistently below one percent since August following the peak of nearly 40 percent positivity in May. The 10 wards in Bengaluru where no new Covid-19 cases have been reported in the last 10 days are SK Garden, Sarvagna nagar, Dayananda nagar, Vrishabhavathi nagar, Cottonpete, Kempapura Agrahara, Jagjivanram nagar, Rayapura, Azad nagar and Hanumanthnagar. The city has however seen a spike in reporting of Covid-19 linked deaths with 44 cases recorded in the September 14-20 period, pushing the case fatality rate up to 2.02 percent. The 44 deaths reported in the last week is the highest since the end of July when 52 deaths were recorded and CFR was at 1.77 percent. The CFR has crossed the 2 percent mark for the first time since July in the city. Dr BK Vijendra, chief health officer of the BBMP, said the spike in deaths was on account of the inclusion of a backlog of Covid deaths to the fatality list in the last week. A total of 389 cases and eight deaths were reported in the BBMP report issued for September 21 on Wednesday. There are 81 active containment zones within the municipal limits at present with the highest in the Bommanahalli zone (25) followed by East zone (19). The highest positivity rate was registered in Mahadevapura zone with 0.56 per cent and the lowest was in West zone at 0.26 per cent. Meanwhile, an official in the BBMP said that the genome sequencing committee and technical advisory committee has asked the civic agency to collect samples to test for virus variants prevalent in the city.
