Over 3,000 COVID-19 Infected Patients 'Untraceable' In Bengaluru

As many as 3,338 people who tested positive for novel coronavirus in Bengaluru are untraceable, which accounts for 7% of the total confirmed cases in the city. The search is underway to trace them, Karnataka civic body informed.

"We could trace some of the positive patients with the help of the police but 3,338 are still untraceable," NDTV quoted Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike Commissioner N Manjunatha Prasad.

Some of them provided wrong mobile numbers and addresses at the time of giving samples, and they disappeared after getting positive results, he added.

Though the search for the missing patients is being vigorously done, the city administration said that there is no certain way to trace them and are unaware of the fact if those individuals have quarantined themselves after testing positive for the infection.

"We have to ensure that all the infected persons have to be traced and quarantined. We have prioritised it so that they could be traced and isolated," Deputy Chief Minister Dr Ashwat Narayan as quoted.

However, to forbid this from happening hereafter, the civic body has now decided to ask for government-issued identity cards and mobile number verification from the people before collecting samples for testing.

The announcement comes in the midst of surging COVID cases that the state has been witnessing from the past fortnight. According to the media, the number of cases has gone up by nearly 27,000 from about 16,000 in the last 14 days.

On Saturday, Karnataka recorded 5,000 new coronavirus cases, of which Bengaluru alone recorded 2,036 infections. As per the updates of the 24-hours, the total number of cases in the state now stands at 90,942.

72 people succumbed to the infection, taking the death toll at 1,798, 30 of which were reported from the capital. As of now, the state has reported 33,750 recoveries.

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