Help poor, needy by not cutting their salaries: Karnataka CM

Bengaluru, Mar 30: Army personnel on Sunday distributed food packets and other essential items to the needy and sprayed Calcium Hypochlorite solution in Koramangala and Vanarpet areas amid the coronavirus lockdown.

The Central government had on Tuesday announced a 21-day lockdown in a bid to stop the spread of the deadly virus that has left several thousand dead globally.

A total of 979 confirmed cases of COVID-19 have been reported in India, informed the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare on Sunday.

Bengaluru, May 13: 26 new covid-19 cases have been reported in Karnataka taking the total cases to 951. This includes 32 COVID deaths, one non-COVID death and 442 discharges.

The new cases include eleven cases from Bidar - all of whom are from the containment zone - , four from Hassan, two each from Davangere, Kalaburgi, Vijayapura and Uttara Kannada and one each from Bengaluru Urban, Ballari and Dakshina Kannada.

All the cases reported in Hassan and Vijayapura are with a travel history to Mumbai. In Bengaluru Urban, a nurse from a designated COVID hospital who was under quarantine has tested positive.

32nd death

The latest death reported was that of a 60-year-old man in Kalaburgi district. The deceased man from a containment zone was brought dead on May 11 to a designated hospital in Kalaburagi, and he has tested positive for COVID-19, it said.

Bengaluru, June 22: Even as the covid-19 positive cases are steadily increasing in Karnataka, an expert has claimed that community transmission has begun in Bengaluru and cases could keep rising over the next two months.

“If you look at the natural course of this virus across countries around the world, it is about six months. Now we’re in the fourth month. This will go on for another two months. It also sounds like this is the beginning of the peak. There is also a possibility of the number of cases going up from now on. Even across India, cases are increasing,” says Dr CN Manjunath, director of Sri Jayadeva Institute of Cardiovascular Sciences and Research and State Task Force member.

Besides the increase in number of cases, the virus is advancing silently, stealthily. A lot of people who are testing positive are asymptomatic. In areas like Padarayanapura, Nanjangud and many places in north Karnataka, there have been positive cases who have not had any contact with infected individuals. Some cases recorded in Bengaluru over the last two to three days have not had any contact with Covid-positive people.

Dr Manjunath adds: “We are in community transmission. This will happen because nature is ahead of everything. We have to take all possible precautionary measures at our command. This has to happen. Only then some kind of herd immunity will be developed.”

“We are expanding the guidelines of testing to include a large number of people to be tested. Now, according to the Indian Council for Medical Research (ICMR) guidelines, only symptomatic Influenza like Illness (ILI) or Severe Acute Respiratory Infection (SARI), or a person coming in contact with an infected person are being tested.

But since we have crossed 100 days in Karnataka from the first reported case and we’re getting cases with no travel history or contact with a Covid-positive person, we have to start random testing across the sub-group population. Only then will we understand the burden of the disease and what precautions need to be taken,” he says.