Karnataka Covid lockdown news live: BBMP war room employees receive threat calls, many skip work

Barely 24 hours after the government ordered a judicial probe into the deaths of 23 patients at Chamarajanagar Covid hospital on Sunday night and the high court ordered its own enquiry, the government has sent a team of doctors to investigate the tragedy. The team, which arrived on Thursday, will remain in the district for two days.

Two days after BJP lawmakers claimed to have exposed a hospital bed-booking scam in BBMP and social media trolls gave it a communal twist and insinuated “terrorists” were at work, civic authorities on Thursday struggled to convince contract workers and volunteers to return to work for Covid tasks. Thulasi Maddineni, BBMP commissioner in-charge of the south zone war room, said about 30 workers did not turn up, while the war room required all its 210 employees to be present. She said some miscreants had posted the names of all 210 workers with their mobile numbers and they were getting random calls, with some even issuing them threats.

Black marketeering of oxygen cylinders has become a serious concern for authorities as hospitals across the state struggle with shortages. Health and police officials say they have received several complaints about oxygen cylinders being illegally sold for up to Rs 25,000 each to Covid-19 patients in home isolation. A cylinder typically costs about Rs 4,500.

Halfway down the two-week curfew, Karnataka health minister K Sudhakar on Thursday admitted that it has not had desired effect in stopping the surge of Covid-19 cases amid strong indications that the state government may opt for a fullscale two-week lockdown at a crucial meeting on May 10.

The vaccine availability scenario is shocking to say the least, the Karnataka high court observed on Thursday, directing the state to immediately submit the indent/requisition to the authority concerned in the central government for supply of required quantity of doses. A special division bench comprising Chief Justice Abhay Shreeniwas Oka and Justice Aravind Kumar gave this direction after perusing the state government’s written submission.

A day after the Karnataka high court directed the Centre to increase the daily liquid medical oxygen (LMO) allocation for the state to 1,200MT from the present 962MT per day, the central government rushed to the Supreme Court on Thursday against the HC order.