Pejawar Shree hits out at CM, HDK's oath politics'

Mangaluru, Jul 7: The government of Kerala has barred movement of daily pass holders — professionals and workers — between Kasaragod district and Karnataka’s Dakshina Kannada district following a spurt in COVID-19 cases.

Kerala Revenue Minister E. Chandrasekaran announced the decision at a meeting on Monday in Kasaragod. Both district administrations had in June issued passes to daily travellers in their districts to travel in connection with their work.

Those from Dakshina Kannada intending to work in Kasaragod have to remain in Kasaragod for 28 days if they wish to continue and those from Kasaragod would have to remain in Dakshina Kannada for 28 days if they wish to continue their work, the Minister said.

Thousands from Kasaragod travel daily to Mangaluru and surrounding areas in connection with their work. Their travel past Talapady check post on NH 66 was facilitated by daily e-passes.

Similarly, many from Dakshina Kannada, particularly doctors and healthcare workers, travel daily to Kasaragod with daily e-passes issued by the Kasaragod administration.

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.

Bengaluru, Mar 28: A case has been registered against an Infosys employee in Bengaluru for a shocking social media post urging people to "go out and sneeze" and spread the highly contagious COVID-19 virus that has infected over 800 people across the country and claimed 19 lives.

"Let's join hands, go out and sneeze with open mouth in public. Spread the virus," the man wrote on Facebook.
"A case has been registered against the person. Further investigation on. Looking forward to get adequate support from your end during investigation," Sandeep Patil, Joint Commissioner of Police, Crime, Bengaluru city tweeted by tagging along a tweet by Infosys.
Taking congnisance of the post by its employee, the Infosys said the post was "against the code of conduct and its commitment to responsible social sharing".
"Infosys has completed its investigation on the social media post by one of its employees and we believe that this is not a case of mistaken identity," the company said in a statement on Twitter.
"The social media post by the employee is against Infosys' code of conduct and its commitment to responsible social sharing. Infosys has a zero tolerance policy towards such acts and has accordingly, terminated the services of the employee," the statement added.

Earlier this month, the IT firm had vacated one of its buildings in Bengaluru after an employee was suspected to be infected.