Karnataka Covid lockdown news live: Bengaluru to test only symptomatics

Heeding health experts’ suggestion, the state government on Saturday decided to utilise the services of final-year medical, dental, nursing and pharmacy students to treat Covid-19 patients. Dr Devi Shetty, cardiac surgeon and chairman and founder, Narayana Health, warned that the next big shortage the country would face is that of doctors, nurses and frontline workers. “Based on data from the first Covid wave, positivity rate should remain at 25-30% for 3-4 months. Every day over 3 lakh people are testing positive. Statistically, for every positive patient, there will be at least five more patients who are positive but not tested,” he said.

Had he been alive, he would have been happily married next month. For nearly a week, the software professional’s kin ran from pillar to post to find a ventilator, but lost him before they could get one. Nagarabhavi resident Sagar AG, 28, was excited about getting married in June and wanted to keep it a low-key affair with minimal attendance. But the joyous occasion at his home turned tragic in 15 days after Sagar died of Covid-19 complications. When he fell ill on April 12, Sagar gave his reports to a private laboratory and tested negative. But two days later, he had fever and cold. Sagar met his doctor and was told to get himself tested again. This time he tested positive and five days later, BBMP officials called him up to check his health status and suggested home isolation.

A day after India reported a global record of 4 lakh Covid-19 cases in a single day, Karnataka’s active tally crossed that number on Saturday, with the addition of 40,990 infections in a day. With active cases accounting for more than 25% of the total tally, Karnataka is second only to Maharashtra on this count. The positivity rate remained high at 23.03% though it was tad lower than the 25.44% recorded on Friday. The case fatality rate stands at 0.66%. Bengaluru reported 19,353 of the fresh cases and 162 deaths. The city’s active caseload stands at 2.7 lakh now.

A 27-year-old pregnant woman lost both her in-laws to Covid-19 early on Friday and is now hoping for her husband, an IT engineer who’s also infected and is in ICU, to recover. She cremated the elderly couple early on Saturday and heaved a sigh of relief after doctors said her husband is recovering. The 32-year-old techie doesn’t know that his parents are no more. On Thursday evening, the young physiotherapist, who was at her parents’ house in Andhra Pradesh, got to know that her in-laws had contracted the virus and had been hospitalised. “I rushed back to Bengaluru with my uncle only to find out that my husband and mother-in-law were admitted to a hospital in MRCR Layout and my father-in-law in a Rajajinagar facility,” recalled the woman.

In the past week, several people aged above 45 have received messages stating they had completed Covid-19 vaccination even though they didn’t get the shot at the assigned centre. Officials described it as oversight by staff at inoculation centres. A 53-year-old teacher said she got a message asking her to take her second jab at a primary health centre (PHC) in Belthangady taluk, Dakshina Kannada district. She didn’t go after learning that the centre had run out of doses. The same day, she received another message saying she had completed full vaccination. “I don’t know whom I should consult to resolve the issue,” she said.

Some private operators of ambulances and hearse vans in the city are demanding Rs 10,000 to Rs 50,000 to shift the bodies of Covid-19 victims, adding to the distress of grieving families. The high rates are sought for even short distances. Unlike Maharashtra and Rajasthan, Karnataka, it seems, has not capped the charges for moving bodies to crematoria or burial grounds. Relatives of a 60-year-old Banaswadi man, who died of Covid-19 on Thursday, revealed how a private ambulance charged Rs 25,000. The man and his wife returned from a holiday in early April. Later, he developed a fever and a test showed that he had contracted the infection. “Ten days ago, he was admitted to a super-speciality hospital in Malleswaram and remained in the intensive care unit,” said a relative.

With testing laboratories overburdened as the Covid second wave rages in Bengaluru, the state government has tweaked its testing strategy for the techcapital — only symptomatic persons and primary contacts will be subjected to tests. The move, according to officials, is aimed at improving the efficiency of testing laboratories. While laboratories are overloaded with work, the number of people turning up for testing out of fear is compounding the woes of testing personnel. Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) chief commissioner Gaurav Gupta, while interacting with apartments associations on Saturday, said: “Only symptomatic cases (those who have fever, cough and breathlessness, among other symptoms) will be tested and not general cases as there is a heavy load on testing labs.”

With Bengaluru emerging as an epicentre of Covid-19 cases in Karnataka for the last one year, the city's civic body has recently allowed all the non-governmental organisations (NGOs), corporates, resident welfare associations (RWAs) and other apartment complexes to set up Covid care centres within their premises for treating the asymptomatic and mild symptomatic patients.

Karnataka health minister Dr K Sudhakar on Saturday said there is no proposal before the state government to impose a stringent lockdown though he admitted that at least three to four weeks of strict measures were required to contain the spread of the Covid-19.

Karnataka Chief Minister B S Yediyurappa on Saturday said the shortage of vaccine in the state will be sorted out in the next three days, as he made a symbolic start of the inoculation drive for people above 18 years. Read more

The Central Crime Branch of city police arrested two staffers of a government hospital and two middlemen for allegedly issuing fake Covid-negative reports for a price since Thursday. The accused are Bhagya, a junior health worker and Anil Kumar, lab technician, both attached with Dommasandra Primary Health Centre; the middlemen are Mukhesh Singh, 25, of Chodadenahalli and Nagaraj alias Om Shakti, 39, of Hosahalli. Police said the gang issued fake negative reports to many people and charged Rs 700 for each. They said Singh and Shakti developed contact with Bhagya and Kumar at Dommasandra Primary Health Center. The duo used to roam around the hospital and approach people desperately seeking a negative report.

The city police have quickly set up a Covid care centre for the personnel in uniform and their families as infections continue to climb and overwhelm the hospital system. The 50-bed centre has come up inside the new police residential complex in Kadugodi that is yet to be inaugurated. Biocon executive chairperson Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw has funded the centre, which will become functional on Saturday. “There are two sides to this. One, we did not want to burden hospitals and other medical facilities, which are already under pressure. Instead, we wanted a facility exclusively for the police department. Two, we wanted to boost the morale of the force that has been working hard despite the risk of contracting the virus. This is the least we can do for our corona warriors, who have been working tirelessly,” said DCP (Whitefield) D Devraj, who came up with the idea.

Police on Friday seized 1,610 vehicles, including 1,450 two-wheelers, 90 three-wheelers and 70 four-wheelers. The riders and drivers of these vehicles were found to be violating prohibitory orders by moving around on roads without valid reason. The number is a dip from the seizures made on Thursday, when 1,669 two-wheelers, 72 three-wheelers and 81 fourwheelers (1,822 in total) were confiscated. On Wednesday, traffic police had seized 435 two-wheelers, 45 three-wheelers and 23 four wheelers (503 in all).

Not just Bengaluru, but several smaller cities and towns have also been hit by oxygen shortage amid the surge in Covid-19 cases. At least a dozen deaths have been reported — four in Kolar, four in Mysuru and four in three other districts — allegedly due to oxygen scarcity. According to health department officials, till recently most districts were self-sufficient when it comes to oxygen, but with cases spiking by the day, hospitals, especially private ones, are under stress.

Although Karnataka officially reported 20 cases of people infected with the B.1.617 variant — commonly known as the double mutant — of SARS-CoV2, there has been no further cell culture research in the state. The neuro virology lab at Nimhans, which conducted genomic sequencing of cluster cases in Karnataka, says they have no infrastructure for such high-end research. Currently, double mutant strain samples are being sent to the National Institute of Virology (NIV), Pune, for cell culture studies. Studies on cell culture help determine transmission rate and reproduction number of the mutant virus. Precisely what proportion of swab samples in Karnataka have been tested for the double mutant variant through the genomic sequencing unknown.