Govt will celebrate Narayana Guru Jayanti, Siddaramaiah assures Billavas

Bengaluru, Apr 8: The Karnataka government is in favour of lifting the coronavirus lockdown in districts which remained free of the virus infection, subject to approval from the Centre, Chief Minister B S Yediyurappa said on Wednesday.

In an interview to, he also said the state intended to relax liquor sales, stopped since the 21-day lockdown was imposed to contain the spread of COVID-19, after April 14 in a bid to increase state revenues.

The chief minister said the state's legislators would take a 30 per cent salary cut.

According to officials, there were no COVID-19 cases in 12 districts of the total 30 districts in the state.

As on Wednesday, there were 181 COVID-19 cases in the state, including 5 deaths and 28 discharges.

"If the Prime Minister suggests to states to take decision (on lock-down) based on the situation in their respective states, my position is to take a call (on roll-back) in districts free from COVID-19", Yediyurappa said.

This is to allow people to go about their business and move about within the district and not from one district to another, after April 14, after taking the approval of the Prime Minister, he said.

Bengaluru, May 29: A cost-effective state of the art glove box testing booth for swab collection was inaugurated by Karnataka Medical Education Minister Dr K Sudhakar at Victoria hospital.

Inaugurating the specially designed booth for safer, easier and quicker testing, Medical Education Minister Dr Sudhakar said that the portable booths can be used at border check posts and hot spots.

"The testing method involves the collection of samples from inside a box of aluminium and glass. The suspected corona virus-infected individual, whose samples are being taken, has to walk up to the booth and stand in front of the glass exterior. The healthcare worker inside the kiosk collects the sample and then, follows the sanitisation process before proceeding to take the next sample. The collection process, fully contactless, gets over in five minutes," the Minister said.

Dr Sudhakar also said: "This booth significantly reduces manpower requirement and the need for PPE kits. The main advantages of this procedure are that it needs fewer healthcare workers and strictly adheres to the norms of social distancing. 

The booth is low-cost. Each model costs about Rs 15,000-20,000."
It is also portable and can be mounted on a vehicle and transported to any location.

It can be particularly useful for collecting samples in hot spots and border checkpoints, he added. 

Mangaluru/Udupi, May 28: Coastal Karnataka witnessed further spike in covid-19 cases today with 27 people testing positive for coronavirus in Udupi and six in Dakshina Kannada. 

Among 27 coronavirus patients in Udupi 18 are males and 9 females. Among them 24 have come from Maharashtra, two from Telangana and one from Kerala. All of them were under quarantine.

As many as 147 confirmed cases of coronavirus have been reported so far in the district, including a death. Three have recovered, and 143 are active.

In Dakshina Kannada, 2 females aged 18 and 62, and four males aged 25, 36, 50 and 61, are the ones to be tested positive. All the six persons to test positive are Maharashtra returnees.

With this, the number of cases in DK has increased to 87, out of which 51 are currently active. As many as 29 persons have recovered and been discharged, and seven deaths have occurred so far.