Bengaluru: The Karnataka government is mulling strict COVID rules to contain the spread of virus as daily cases continue to rise, said state revenue minister R Ashoka on Saturday. “We will convene a meeting and announce some tough rules before 7 January when the night curfew will be lifted,” the minister said. Karnataka government has imposed a night curfew from 10 pm to 5 am till 7 January in order to check the spread of the disease.
Ashoka said the spike in infections in Karnataka was a serious issue. According to him, Bengaluru is in the Red Zone. “Bengaluru is in the Red Zone according to the list declared by the Union government. It is important to sound an alert in Bengaluru. We can save people’s lives if we impose more restrictions in Bengaluru and reduce the number of hospitalisations,” he said.
Ashoka said a government panel on Covid-19, which includes himself, state higher education minister Dr CN Ashwath Narayan and health minister Dr K Sudhakar will hold a meeting that would be convened before 7 January. He also said that the expert committee on health will brief Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai on the measures to be taken. “We will implement the recommendations of the committee in toto because we have seen the sufferings and deaths last time,” Ashoka said.
The minister explained that the government will not leave any loophole this time in terms of oxygen supply, availability of beds or medicines. “We will make all necessary arrangements. We are cautious and we will make all necessary arrangements under the leadership of our chief minister,” he added.
Karnataka COVID cases latest update:
- Continuing the rising trend of COVID-19 cases for the second day, Karnataka recorded 1,187 fresh infections taking the cumulative cases in the state to 30,09,557, the health department said on Sunday.
- The state also saw six deaths pushing the toll to 38,346.
- The department said in its bulletin that 275 people were discharged, taking the total number of recoveries to 29,60,890 while the total active cases stood at 10,292.
- The spike in cases was driven by Bengaluru Urban, which contributed 923 infections and three deaths.
- Other districts too registered fresh cases, including 63 in Dakshina Kannada, 54 in Udupi, 20 in Mysuru, 12 each in Belagavi, Tumakuru and Kodagu and 10 in Mandya.
- Besides the toll in Bengaluru, one death each was reported in Tumakuru, Uttara Kannada and Dakshina Kannada districts.
- There were zero fatalities in 27 districts of the state, including eight districts, which saw zero infections as well.
- The state’s positivity rate for the day was 1.08 per cent and the case fatality rate was 0.5 per cent.
- A total of 1,08,911 samples were tested in the state, including 91,003 RT-PCR tests, on Sunday that took the cumulative number of specimens examined so far to 5.66 crore.
- There were 19,729 inoculations done taking the total number of vaccinations so far to 8.64 crore, the health department said.
(With inputs from PTI)
