E-Paper
B S Yediyurappa to decide on fresh lockdown as Karnataka’s Covid-19 tally crosses 10K
Karnataka became the eleventh state to record more than 10,000 Covid-19 cases.
Karnataka on Wednesday registered 397 new Covid-19 cases taking its tally to 10,118 cases which includes164 deaths and 6,151 discharges, the government said.
The state capital Bengaluru has 1,170 of the 3,799 active cases in the state.
Amid a surge in Covid-19 cases, home minister Basvaraj Bommai said that Chief Minister BS Yediyurappa will discuss with experts and take a call shortly on whether a city or statewide lockdown should again be imposed to contain the spread of the disease.
“The CM is discussing both with senior administration officials and medical experts on whether and when a lockdown needs to be imposed. But we will have to consider the economic costs of such a move too,” Bommai said.
Click here for full Covid-19 coverage.
On Tuesday JD (S) leader and former CM H D Kumaraswamy had demanded that the government impose a 20-day lockdown across the state to prevent the rapid spread of the virus.
On Wednesday, Kumaraswamy took to Twitter and directly appealed to the people of the state to impose a self-declared curfew and stay at home asserting that the economy was not more important than life.
Accusing the state government of complete failure in preventing the spread of the virus as well as treating those infected, he said that the medical services were fully stretched to treat even the 3,000-4,000 active cases and claimed that there was a shortage of hospital beds and ventilators.
He said that even after the government capped prices of treatment at private hospitals it was unaffordable for the vast majority of the population.
Meanwhile, health and family welfare minister B Sriramulu said workers, traders and people across 15 different categories need to be tested to check whether community transmission has set in.
