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Wearing mask is personal choice, says K’taka minister
Masks and social distancing have been described by many medical experts as the best way to keep safe as it reduces the risk significantly.
Senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader and Karnataka cabinet minister, Umesh V Katti on Tuesday courted a controversy with his remarks. Katti said that wearing masks is not mandatory and it is a personal choice, while going against his own government’s guidelines to maintain Covid appropriate behaviour.
“Yesterday night, the Prime Minister said that I will not make it mandatory and (people) should take up responsibility and wear masks. In that way, it is left to that person and in the same way, me as well. I felt like not wearing it and hence did not wear it and there is no problem,” Katti said, while not wearing a mask.
Katti is Karnataka’s minister for forest, food, civil supplies and consumers affairs department.
His statements come at a time when Karnataka has witnessed a sharp uptick in new Covid-19 infections that has taken the active caseload to over two lakh with the onset of the third wave in the southern state.
The test positivity rate in Karnataka has breached the 22% mark, highest compared to all earlier waves since March 2020.
Masks and social distancing have been described by many medical experts as the best way to keep safe as it reduces the risk significantly.
Karnataka on Tuesday said that it registered 41,457 new infections in a 24-hour-period, the highest single day numbers that takes the active caseload to over 2.5 lakh with Bengaluru, the largest and most populous city in the entire state, accounting for nearly 1.80 lakh of these cases.
As many as 20 deaths were reported, said Karnataka’s health minister Dr K Sudhakar.
The statements by Katti come even as the BJP continues to blame the Congress, the principal Opposition in Karnataka, for the steep rise in cases after the latter undertook a 10-day padayatra for Mekedatu in which hundreds and thousands participated, defying prohibitory orders.
Karnataka has also reported a total of 766 cases of the Omicron variant of the virus after 287 more tested positive for the new variant on Monday.
Karnataka chief minister Basavaraj Bommai who himself just recovered from a bout of Covid-19, has instructed all the district administrations to take appropriate action to contain the spread of the virus.
The state government has also imposed night and weekend curfews as well as restrictions on business establishments and movement of people in the hope to contain the spread of the virus.
