Bengaluru sees single-digit daily cases; Covaxin doses used

Bengaluru: Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) managed to use up all its stocks of Covaxin before their expiry on January 31. The agency now has a week more to exhaust its existing Covishield stocks of 4,000 doses before they expire.

BBMP health commissioner KV Thrilok Chandra told TOI there is sufficient demand for the Covid-19 precautionary dose at present and there is positivity about utilizing the vaccines at the earliest. On December 23, 2022, TOI had reported that the Palike was left with 1.2 lakh Covaxin doses and the local body was planning to indent 5 lakh doses of Covishield and 2 lakh of Corbevax.

Chandra said Covaxin was utilized in BBMP limits. And from the indent placed, the state government provided BBMP with 1 lakh doses of Covishield in the beginning of January. Of this, just 4,000 doses are left and they will expire in a week.

Although BBMP is confident of utilizing the Covishield doses by the end of this week, the Covid scare has evidently come down.

For the second time in a week, Bengaluru Urban recorded new positive cases in single digit - 8 - on February 3, according to BBMP's Covid war room data. The last time the cases were in single digit - 6 - was on January 28. The number went up to 30 in the days between.

Dr Sunil Kumar DR, epidemiologist, said the number of cases rose suddenly because of more number of samples being tested the same day. However, the numbers themselves are low and insignificant now, despite the ramping up of testing after the recent Chinese surge, he added.

According to Chandra, 2,000 tests are being done daily. "In addition to this, passengers are being screened at the airport and we have 1-2 positive cases a day from there. Environmental surveillance shows nothing of concern," he pointed out.