Hike in fuel prices won't be a burden: Siddaramaiah

Bengaluru, Feb 2: Karnataka Chief Minister B S Yediyurappa on Sunday said that the cabinet expansion would take place on February 6, with 13 MLAs taking oath of office. “The cabinet expansion will take place on February 6 with the oath-taking ceremony at the Raj Bhavan at 10.30 AM,” he told reporters in Bengaluru.

Thirteen MLAs, including 10 who had joined BJP from parties, including Congress and the JD(S), will take oath, he said. The cabinet expansion is on the cards for nearly two months ever since the BJP won the maximum number of seats in the December 5 2019 bypolls and got a majority in the Karnataka assembly.

Bengaluru, Jul 1: Karnataka government has announced a complete lockdown on Sundays till August 2. "There shall be complete lockdown on Sundays from July 5 and followed by next four Sundays till August 2," stated the government. 

"However, essential activities allowed during night curfew will be permitted during Sunday lockdown too. Marriages already fixed on Sundays will be permitted as per norms," also said.

The government further ordered, "All government offices, Boards and Corporations, except those operating and maintaining essential services, shall remain closed on all Saturdays till the second week of August."

Employers should ensure that the Aarogya Setu app is downloaded and used by the employees. The app enables the identification of potential risk of infection,

Regarding Sunday Lockdown, it said, there shall be complete lockdown on Sundays with effect from 5th July, 2020, and followed by next 4 Sundays till 2nd August, 2020.

However, the essential activities as above permitted during Night Curfew shall be permitted during the Sunday lockdown also.

Lockdown in Containment Zones in Karnataka

Lockdown will continue to remain in force in the Containment zones. In the Containment Zones, only essential activities shall be allowed. There shall be strict perimeter control to ensure that there is no movement of people in or out of these zones, except for medical emergencies and for facilitating supply of essential goods and services. In the Containment Zones, there shall be intensive contact tracing, house-to-house surveillance, and other clinical interventions, as required.

All vulnerable persons, individuals above 65, persons with comorbidities, pregnant women and children below the age of 10 years are advised to stay at home, except for health and essential purposes.

Karnataka saw 947 new coronavirus cases, including 503 cases from Bengaluru Urban, taking the total number of cases to 15,242. Death toll has jumped to 246 after 20 deaths were reported on Tuesday, according to the data released by Union Health Ministry. 

The current physical distancing guidelines provided by the World Health Organisation (WHO) and by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) may not be adequate to curb the coronavirus spread, according to a research which says the gas cloud from a cough or sneeze may help virus particles travel up to 8 metres. The research, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, noted that the the current guidelines issued by the WHO and CDC are based on outdated models from the 1930s of how gas clouds from a cough, sneeze, or exhalation spread.

Study author, MIT associate professor Lydia Bourouiba, warned that droplets of all sizes can travel 23 to 27 feet, or 7-8 metres, carrying the pathogen.

According to Bourouiba, the current guidelines are based on "arbitrary" assumptions of droplet size, "overly simplified", and "may limit the effectiveness of the proposed interventions" against the deadly pandemic.

 She explained that the old guidelines assume droplets to be one of two categories, small or large, taking short-range semi-ballistic trajectories when a person exhales, coughs, or sneezes.

However based on more recent discoveries, the MIT scientist said, sneezes and coughs are made of a puff cloud that carries ambient air, transporting within it clusters of droplets of a wide range of sizes.

Bourouiba warned that this puff cloud, with ambient air entrapped in it, can offer the droplets moisture and warmth that can prevent it from evaporation in the outer environment.

"The locally moist and warm atmosphere within the turbulent gas cloud allows the contained droplets to evade evaporation for much longer than occurs with isolated droplets," she said.

"Under these conditions, the lifetime of a droplet could be considerably extended by a factor of up to 1000, from a fraction of a second to minutes," the researcher explained in the study.

The MIT scientist, who has researched the dynamics of coughs and sneezes for years, added that these droplets settle along the trajectory of a cough or sneeze contaminating surfaces, with their residues staying suspended in the air for hours.

"Even when maximum containment policies were enforced, the rapid international spread of COVID-19 suggests that using arbitrary droplet size cutoffs may not accurately reflect what actually occurs with respiratory emissions, possibly contributing to the ineffectiveness of some procedures used to limit the spread of respiratory disease," Bourouiba wrote in the study