88 airports to be functional under UDAN, says minister

Udupi, Jun 4: Karnataka Medical Education Minister Dr K Sudhakhar on Wednesday said that he will take up an issue before a high-powered committee on COVID-19 to find out the possibility of imposing lockdown on a particular house of the person infected with the virus instead of sealing down of entire areas.

Talking to reporters here on Tuesday after reviewing the district's prevailing COVID situation, the minister said the concept and modalities of declaring any area as containment zone has undergone changes in the last two months.

"Hitherto, we were declaring the entire area as the containment zone after detection of coronavirus positive cases. Subsequently, the area of the containment zone was decreased from the whole area to a particular street," the Minister said.

"Now, BJP MLA Raghupati Bhat has given a suggestion to seal down a particular house of the positive patient which would be taken up before the high-powered panel. The district administration concerned could supply all essential items to the particular family," he said.

He further said that the Union government has been providing all facilities to all the states to deal with the situation."

Kalaburagi, Apr 9: An FIR has been lodged against the management and staff of Bahamani Super Speciality Hospital here in Kalaburagi allegedly for not following procedures meant to deal with COVID-19 and hiding details of patients with coronavirus symptoms, said District Deputy Commissioner Sharath B on Wednesday.

The district family welfare department official and nodal officer of KPME Kalaburagi took cognisance of the reports that the private hospitals in the district are not informing the government about patients having COVID-19 symptoms and they are only reporting about such cases at the last moment.

"It has come to our light that some private hospitals in Kalaburagi city are hiding information about the patients who are having COVID-19 like symptoms and these cases are not being reported on time to us," said the District Deputy Commissioner.

"We verified the records of these hospitals and it is clear now that they are revealing the serious cases in the last moment when the treatment has not given any help to patients. Only then such cases are bringing to ESI hospital in Kalaburagi. We have taken steps to quarantine the entire staff member of Bahamani hospital. We have taken legal steps against them for non-compliance of the orders issued to them and for not reporting this matter to us at the earliest stage," he said.

A case has been registered under the Disaster Management Act, 2005 column 51, 58 and sections 269 and 188 of the Indian Penal Code.

He further said that two new cases were reported positive on April 8 and one person has succumbed to the infection because he was having a severe respiratory infection.
He appealed to everyone to strictly follow lockdown restrictions and not violate Section 144 at any cost.

Speaking about the attacks on Accredited Social Health Activist (ASHA) and Anganwadi workers, who were given a task to collect travel details of locals in view of coronavirus crisis, Sharath said: "Some of the health workers, ASHA and Anganwadi workers, who have been given a task to going from door to door to verify health status were troubled unnecessarily, saying that they have come to collect data for NRC and NPR."

"They are doing a survey on behalf of the district administration as they have to gather travelling information so that a person can be quarantined to contain COVID-19 spread. There has been an attack, a case has been registered in this regard," he said.

Bengaluru, Feb 19: Karnataka Chief Minister B.S. Yediyurappa thanked his Kerala counterpart Pinarayi Vijayan for initiating action against those dumping bio-medical and bio-wastes in Karnataka's districts from neighboring state Kerala.

In a statement, he said, "First I would like to thank Kerala Chief Minister Pinnarayi Vijayan for his prompt reaction and response to initiate legal action against the dumpers of bio-medical and bio-waste in our districts neighboring Kerala."

The Karnataka Chief Minister has taken a serious note of the reports in a section of media on alleged dumping of bio-medical waste and bio-waste by people from Kerala in bordering Mysuru, Kodagu and Chamarajnagar districts.

"I have directed deputy commissioners of concerned districts, environment department, and pollution control board to take stock of the situation and check surreptitious activities of individuals and agencies from Kerala who are indulging in this illegal activity. I have also directed the officials to prevent the use of this bio-medical waste by Jaggery units as fuel," Yediyurappa said.

He assured that soon this activity will be checked and ended.