Don’t abuse; if you feel Rahul is a liar then file defamation: Kharge to BSY

Bengaluru, Jun 17: Amid rising COVID cases in the past two weeks, the Karnataka government is planning to increase testing capacity to 25,000 samples a day, said a minister.

"Due to increase in cases in the last two weeks, the government is trying to scale up testing to 15,000 to 25,000 samples per day," said Medical Education Minister K. Sudhakar.

He said people living in crowded places, sanitation workers, street vendors, healthcare workers, police and other frontline staff would be extensively tested.

"It has also been decided to mandatorily test all those who have symptoms of Influenza Like Illness (ILI) and Severe Acute Respiratory Infection (SARI)," he said.

Similarly, all people over 50 with ILI symptoms will be tested.

The health department will also randomly test samples in old containment zones to make sure that the infection is not recurring.

Currently, there are 72 Covid testing labs in the southern state, 41 government operated and 31 private labs.

However, for a few days, the number of Covid tests in the state have plummeted.

On Monday, the health department has tested only 5,362 samples across the state.

Likewise, on Tuesday, only 7,936 samples were tested, diverging from earlier weeks when around 10,000 cases were tested on an average.

In all, 4.57 lakh samples have been tested so far, of which 4.39 lakh have tested negative.

Bhatkal, May 8: In a shocking development 12 new coronavius positive cases were detected in Bhatkal town of Uttara Kannada district in a single day. 

Around 20 days ago an 18-year-old girl in Bhatkal was tested positive for the covid-19. The source of this infection was the First Neuro hospital located at Padil in Mangaluru where a covid-19 patient from Bantwal had undergone treatment. 

Now, the Bhatkal girl’s family members and neighbours also have tested positive for the deadly virus. Madeena Colony, Usmainya Colony, Nawayath Colony, Tengungundi Cross, Hindu Colony, Kukti Nagar, Jali Cross and Azad Nagar are sealed down by officials after the confirmation of new cases. 

Those infected include a 5-month-old baby, elderly people aged 60, 75, 83 and children aged 3, 11 and 12 years. 

Meanwhile, Kumata-Honnavar MLA Dinakar K Shetty has written to Uttara Kannada DC urging the complete seal down of Bhatkal taluk.

Kasaragod, Apr 17: Even as this district continue to remain in the high-alert red zone category of Covid-19, Kasaragod has slowly but steadily been limping back to restraint level of the pandemic from a possible slipping into a stage-3 of community spread early this month.

Thanks to the stringent and committed measures implemented by the district administration crisscross the district besides total isolation of few localities by enforcing triple lockdown.

The district had been a Covid-19 hotspot ever since an NRI who returned from the Gulf violated quarantine protocol and travelled wide and far by meeting and contacting with several people including two MLAs of the district. That apart the irresponsible attitude of the people who broke the rules of quarantine and lockdown norms also made things go from bad to worse resulting in contributing for a near-half of the total positive cases in the state at the beginning of April.