A dedicated team of officers from various departments of the Karnataka government are using technology for making a platform which helps monitoring of positive patients. Along with experts have been quietly working round the clock to create and map a database of COVID 19 positive cases and their contact circle in Bengaluru to ensure that the measures to curb the deadly virus are put in place beforehand. Located on the 6th floor of the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) headquarters, this team has been using technological interventions to monitor medical facilities across the cities including COVID exclusive hospitals, isolation centres, fever clinics and ambulances. The war room was launched on March 24 and since then, has expanded its scope of work into even including contact tracing of those who have tested positive.The primary and secondary contacts of the positive cases are monitored and their symptoms and activities recorded to curb the spread.

An app with Global Positioning System(GPS) is installed on the phones of those who are in quarantine and if their movements suggest any violation, they are immediately called and checked. Working on 36 consoles, the officials have been collating data on the areas where the positive cases have been most reported from and then further dissecting the data to establish a pattern of which zones or clusters are most at risk. Advice for escalation of measures for those areas has been implemented.he information flow has assisted the war room by keeping 8-km radius surveillance of a positive patient to ensure the local transmission is contained. The help of the police department is sought in cases where violations of home quarantine are witnessed. IAS officer Hephshibha Rani heads the team at the Command Centre and directly get access to real-time data from health and police departments. The war room also keeps track of sanitation work in the city including cleaning of roads and disposal of waste.

Karnataka had witnessed early COVID positive cases in the country and ahead of the nationwide lockdown, as early as March 13, the state government ordered a partial lockdown, shutting down educational institutions as well as places of mass gathering including malls, theatres, and religious places. Although Karnataka started off in third place in the list of highest cases reported, with the first case reported on March 8 in the state, it has slowly slipped to 11th place. Currently, a total of 219 cases have been reported from the state including those who have recovered.