Karnataka Covid lockdown news live: State to get 2 crore Covid vaccine doses through global tender

Two crore Covid vaccine doses will be procured through global tender in order to meet the increased demand and to facilitate vaccination of the age group of 18-44 years, deputy chief minister and state Covid task force head C N Ashwath Narayan said on Tuesday.

All Indira Canteens within Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) limits will distribute food packets free of charge to the poor from May 12 to May 24.

Bengaluru, Pune, Delhi, Ernakulam and Nagpur are among those top 10 cities in the country which account for 24.44 per cent of total active cases.

Chief Minister B S Yediyurappa on Tuesday urged the people to support the Karnataka government to control Covid-19 spread in the state.

Karnataka chief minister B S Yediyurappa on Tuesday asked Covid patients over-staying in hospitals 'unnecessarily' to go home to make way for serious ones to get treatment.

Karnataka home minister Basavaraj Bommai on Tuesday said he has directed the police to exercise restraint while dealing with people during the Covid related restrictions in the state and prefer other ways such as seizing vehicles of those who violated guidelines.

With the city facing a severe shortage of vaccine supplies, more and more Bengalureans, primarily in the 18-44 age group, are now heading to nearby districts for inoculation. Read more

Karnataka CM BS Yediyurappa on Monday asked officials to prepare for the third wave of Covid-19 and ordered to set up a task force committee to handle the forthcoming situation.

With thousands fleeing Bengaluru — a Covid-19 hotspot — ahead of the 14-day lockdown which kicked in on Monday, experts fear the mass migration will fuel a surge in positivity rates in the districts. Read more

The first Oxygen Express to Karnataka, carrying 120 tonnes of liquid medical oxygen reached the city on Tuesday. According to South Western Railway, the oxygen express carrying six cryogenic containers with medical oxygen weighing 120 tonnes departed from Jharkhand on Monday and arrived at the Inland Container Depot in Whitefield here this morning. Read more

First Oxygen Express arrives at ICD, Whitefield in Bengaluru carrying 6 containers with 20 tonnes liquid medical oxygen each. Oxygen was loaded from Jamshedpur yesterday at 3am, said South Western Railway.

Two pharmacy staffers were arrested for trying to sell 17 Remdesivir vials illegally on Saturday, worth Rs 57,980. Shanmukaiah Swamy, and Malathesh, work with pharmacies of two hospitals. They illegally procured the vials from the hospitals and were trying to sell them for Rs 15,000 each when the MRP is Rs 3,400-3,490 per unit.

The state’s first ‘Oxygen Express’ train is expected to arrive in Bengaluru on Tuesday. “The train hauling six cryogenic containers left Tatanagar railway station in Jamshedpur at 3:30am on Monday,” said Ashok Kumar Verma, Bengaluru divisional railway manager. “This train is carrying 120 tonnes of liquid medical oxygen meant for Karnataka and is expected to reach on Tuesday morning at Container Corporation of India Limited (CONCOR), Whitefield.”

Karur Lok Sabha member S Jothimani has launched a fund-raising campaign to procure oxygen concentrators aimed at treating less critial Covid-19 patients in need of oxygen support. This will also help in ensuring efficient use of liquid medical oxygen in government hospitals to treat critical patients. She has asked her team to procure 100 oxygen concentrators for government hospitals in six assembly segments in Karur, Trichy, Pudukottai and Dindigul district. “We have decided to procure oxygen concentrators as a precautionary measure to ease the demand for oxygen cylinders,” she said. She added that the oxygen requirement has shot up in hospitals. For instance, Karur medical college hospital has 10,000 KL capacity of liquid oxygen but it lasts just three days. The refilling takes more than 4-5 days.

Bengaluru accounted for 374 of Karnataka’s deaths, the highest ever for the city. Bengaluru’s 374 deaths was higher than its previous highest toll of 346 deaths recorded on May 7. The city’s Monday death toll is second only to Delhi which has seen over 400 deaths in a day a few times. Bengaluru has now seen 8,431 Covid deaths till date.

Hospitals continued to battle a shortage in oxygen with a private hospital in Mysuru narrowly averting a Chamarajanagar-like tragedy. Read more

With an increasing demand for ICU beds and ventilators, clinicians are facing an ethical dilemma over allotment of beds: Young breadwinners or senior citizens? The focus is certainly more on saving the youngsters, multiple hospital authorities told TOI on the condition of anonymity. Read more

A critically ill Covid-positive woman on oxygen support was forced to wait on the pavement outside Yelahanka General Hospital for over 48 hours even as her son frantically tried to find her a bed inside the overcrowded facility. Read more