Bengaluru, Jul 17: Karnataka Chief Minister B S Yediyurappa on Friday said lockdown is not the solution for controlling COVID-19 and made it clear that there was no proposal before the government to extend it in Bengaluru.
Bengaluru urban and rural areas are currently under "complete lockdown" since 8 pm of July 14 and it will be effective till 5 am on July 22.
With the spike in cases, speculations were rife that the current lockdown is likely to be extended for 15 days, as that much time is required to break the chain.
"Lockdown is not the solution to control COVID. There is no proposal before the government to extend the lockdown," Yediyurappa was quoted as saying by his office in a release.
The Chief Minister today chaired a meeting with Ministers who have been made in-charge of eight zones in the city and officials regarding the COVID-19 situation in Bengaluru.
Earlier too, on July 13, the eve of the lockdown, Yediyurappa had said the government did not plan to extend it in Bengaluru urban and rural districts, and had appealed to the people to cooperate by not paying heed to rumours.
However, earlier today city Mayor M Goutham Kumar and commissioner of the civic body Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike B H Anil Kumar had favoured its extension.
They had said that in their personal opinion, a 15 day lockdown would be good, as that much time is required to break the chain.
The Opposition Congress too had asked for a minimum of 15 days lockdown after taking expert opinion.
"Respected Chief Minister, you have imposed lockdown in Bengaluru, but it is difficult to expect results from this lockdown, which has been imposed just for for the sake of it.
Take expert opinion and enforce strict lockdown in Bengaluru at least for 15 days.
If not, even if God comes,it will be difficult to protect Bengaluru," KPCC Working President Eshwar Khandre tweeted.
Speaking to reporters after attending the meeting chaired by the CM, Revenue Minister R Ashoka said lockdown will not be extended and all activities can resume as usual from July 22.
"Lockdown will not be extended. I'm saying this after discussing with the Chief Minister. There is no such thinking before the government.
CM has got report from the experts, it was discussed in the meeting.
By lockdown we can only postpone things, we have taken that breathing time.
If we continue lockdown it will keep on continuing," he said.
The Minister said the process of sealing places, wherever required, would continue.
He said the plan to conduct more tests was discussed at the meeting and all the required zone wise arrangements would be made
"We also discussed about beds and shortage of ventilators and steps will be taken to arrange for them," he said.
As of July 16 evening, cumulatively 51,422 COVID-19 positive cases have been confirmed in the state, which includes 1,032 deaths and 19,729 discharges.
Bengaluru urban district tops the list of positive cases, with a total of 25,288 infections.
Out of 4,169 fresh cases reported on Thursday, a whopping 2,344 were from Bengaluru urban alone
At the meeting, the Chief Minister said all necessary steps should be taken to clear all the difficulties faced by infected patients in getting admitted to hospitals.
The CMO statement quoted Yediyurappa as directing Ministers to hold meetings with private hospitals to ensure that COVID and non COVID patients get treatment.
Warning of strict action against private hospitals if they don't allocate beds for COVID patients,he said volunteers and nodal officers would be appointed to gather information about admission of such patients and availability of beds
The Chief Minister said rapid antigen tests should be conducted on those dying at hospitals or homes and necessary action taken to hand over the bodies or to conduct last rites as per the procedures, depending on the cause of death.
Recruitment was on to appoint doctors to resolve shortage, he said,adding that volunteers have been identified in each ward for micromanagement and ambulances allocated.
Marriage halls and lodges have been selected in all wards for those not having separate quarantine facilities, Yediyurappa said and stressed on increasing testing.
Deploying extra police force at places where there are chances of people gathering in large numbers, ensuring beds availability and ambulances within two hours of a patient testing positive- with decentralized monitoring, giving priority to those symptomatic above 65-years during allocation of beds were among directions given by the Chief Minister.
Meanwhile, the agitation against the marriage of Hindu girl N Ashitha with her Muslim friend on April 17 in Mysuru from the Hinduva extremists, have received severe criticism from various quarters.
Comments
RESPECT the REAL MAATHA who want her daughter to be happy.
We have seen bandh for price hike,murder etc...
No imposing bandh for somebody getting married ...
Modi's intolerant group sending wrong message to the world
If Muslim girl go with Hindu boy then there is no problem for RSS or Sangaparivar What a mindset is their ? here government should do their duty (keep the Law & Order) without any partiality then only we can live here peacefully
RSS IS ONLY GOOD FOR THESE TYPE OF WORKS..
BARATH MATHA HOLDING SAFFRON FLAG NOT INDIAN FLAG REAL INDIAN LOVERSSS THESE RSS...
Zameer Mysur.......If the girl is a Muslim, and the boy is Hindu.....then what will be your reaction / comments
Kisiko mirchi laga kya? Burnol moment
Karnataka is still in India right? Are you some kind of a challenged person?
Vote bank politics of BJP will not work here....I am sorry...
best thing for them to do is let those sweet hearts get marry...wish them a good conjugal life....best part of it is these sweet hearts did not run away from their parents....
It is not function of RSS to provide protection to those people, its for the state to do so, in which it has utterly failed. Your argument is like, yeah he might be thief but rather than arresting him why dont you beef up security of your home, that's just absurd. Rather than calling upon reforms in islamic faith you are saying-\fine to a certain extent is true\" this meek response is just like justifying this as a natural state of affairs."
lets say if this so called Love Jihad exists, though you must not call every inter-religious marriages as Love Jihad. Second point is, RSS is saying muslims and other religions use marriages as a tool to increase their numbers, fine at certain extent its true, since at some point the couples are forced to convert to other religions to convince their parents and community, the religious community, but mind it, you can't call it Love Jihad, but it is due to the mind set of other religions, its a fact you have to accept it. But, if RSS is soo great and right then what they must do is to protect the people who do inter-religious marriages without conversion. Will they ever do that ?.... I don't think so, what RSS is trying to do is the opposite, they want to use marriages as a tool to increase the Hindu population. As a Hindu I can never support that, there is nothing great about it !!
Soon the sanghis will take back India to stone age!! What are they upto? Marriage is purely a personal affair between two individuals, no matter what religion or caste they belong to. As long as the two individuals have consented others have no business in coming in their way. All Indians should unite and fight against the atrocities of sanghis against the fundamental rights of every citizen. This kind of hooliganism shall not be tolerated any more.
These acts of \intolerance\" are the result of the one-sided tolerance that incessantly takes place in our society, and which imparity is routinely ignored by the secularists. Hindus marrying Christians or Muslims are invariably required to convert, and/or their children brought up in the non-Hindu faith. In the rare case where a Muslim may convert out of his or her own volition, the end is often bloody and tragic as I can personally vouch from observation. It is invariably the Muslim party's own family that slaughters one or both individuals. And these are not country hicks who don't know better... these are well-educated urbane families that are doyens of the society that they dwell in!"
And Salutes to the genius RSS member who invented the term and the great 'Philosophy' behind it!
In a hypocrite country like ours it feels great to see a Hindu band at a Muslim wedding and a Muslim band at Hindu one secular love.
Girl's dad has no issues but for Chaddis it's LJ, put them out of the society.
It is a constitutional right of the Girl & the Boy. Those who oppose this are actually opposing the constitution, and hence are Anti-Nationals. BJP as a political party should be banned for being anti-constitution.
Put them all behind bar for lifetime, then our country will live in peace.
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