Karnataka Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai earlier today announced relaxations on the persisting COVID curbs. The decision comes ahead after the Chief Minister held a meeting concerning the COVID situation in the state.
The meeting took place in the presence of the Task Force Committee, health minister, Education Minister, principal secretary, and others. The meeting was held at 1 PM on Friday. Following this, The state government relaxed some restrictions, including lifting the weekend lockdown.
State Government lifts restrictions in place for Eateries, Gyms, and bars
Briefing the press at the Vidhan Soudha, R Ashok revenue minister said. “Karnataka will see relaxations starting from Jan 22, The decision has been taken in view of the lesser number of hospitalizations in the state”. Further in case the hospitalizations in the state surge, we will implement the Weekend Curfew. The decision was taken after considering suggestions from the cabinet ministers and the task force committee ”
However, schools and colleges will remain functional in other districts except for Bengaluru. The Closure of Educational establishments will be observing the COVID cases in these places. ” School and Colleges will not function for 3 days if 3-5 students test positive. In another case, if more than 10 students test positive these places will not function for 7 days”. Education minister BC Nagesh added”
The Weekend curfew imposed from Friday 10 pm to Monday 5 am in the State is herewith withdrawn and All other restrictions imposed will continue to remain in force.@cmofKarnataka @mla_sudhakar @Comm_dhfwka @PIBBengaluru@KarnatakaVarthe pic.twitter.com/PTDHBba2nG
— K'taka Health Dept (@DHFWKA) January 21, 2022
He further said” Considering school as a Unit, Since there is a lesser positivity rate currently we are yet to come to a decision whether to shut or run these establishments. Tough, in today’s meeting we have deiced that schools will be functional but further we will take decision looking into the COVID situation on Jan 29”
In the meantime, other curbs on public activities will be in place until further notice. Since restaurants and eateries across the state were incurring huge losses, the state government has lifted up certain restrictions for restaurants, gyms, and bars. Wherein, all these establishments will function with 50 % occupancy.
COVID scare in Karnataka
Meanwhile, the state continues to see alarming growth in COVID infections. On Friday the state witnessed 48049 fresh Infections taking the active caseload in the state to 2,93,231 comprising 19.23% of the total infections.
The case fatality rate also surged to 0.04% in the last 24 hours by adding 22 new deaths. Moreover, in contrast to the surge, it also saw a rise in recoveries with 18115 recoveries on Friday. The state’s health department stated in its press bulletin
As far as hospitalizations are concerned, the state currently has 5,344 patients in hospitals across the state. Out of which around 340 are in ICU and 127 on ventilators.
Among the hospitalizations, around 19.96% comprise the adult population and 0.57% in kids.
