Karnataka government redefines containment zones to ease lockdown restrictions

Coronavirus

Only the building where the COVID-19 patient resides, three floors in case of an apartment building are containment zones.

Alithea Stephanie Mounika

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The Karnataka government has on Friday changed the definition of a containment zone in a bid to further ease the lockdown. Earlier, a containment zone was the area around 100 m radius of the home of a person with COVID-19. This is being changed to mean only the specific building where the person was working and/or residing, when the infection was detected in case it is an individual house. If a person has COVID-19 and lives in an apartment building, only that particular floor where the patient resides, and the floor immediately above and immediately below would be declared as a containment zone, according to the guidelines released by the Health Department. This means that the entire apartment block will no longer be declared as a containment zone if one of the residents tests positive for COVID-19. The new guidelines further state that respective Deputy Commissioners (DC) of each district would have the power to declare the parameters of the containment zone based on the ground reality. The state government announced the new guidelines after two new containment zones were announced in Bengaluru -- Nagawara and JJR Nagar, following reports of new cases of COVID-19 in these areas. This goes along with the updated guidelines which have been issued from the Centre this May. According to the Union Ministry of Health and Family welfare guidelines on containment plans updated on May 16, “The cluster containment strategy would be to contain the disease with in a defined geographic area by early detection, breaking the chain of transmission and thus preventing its spread to new areas.” A cluster has been defined as any location with less than 15 localised cases. The government has said that various measures would be taken to contain the virus within that geographical locations, “This would include geographic quarantine, social distancing measures, enhanced active surveillance, testing all suspected cases, isolation of cases, home quarantine of contacts, social mobilization to follow preventive public health measures.” Meanwhile, the Karnataka government has also set up a team of government officials who will be a part of the Disease Surveillance Team. In a notification issued on Friday, the state government named a total of eleven officials to combat the spread of coronavirus by making them in charge of disease surveillance. The team includes IAS officers Ajay Seth as President, Pankaj Kumar Pandey as Nodal Officer, IFS officer Meenakshi Neegi as Close Contacts Nodal Officer, Dr K Ravi and Dr Shashibhushan (BMRCT), Dr K Anita Desai (NIMHANS), Anirudh Shravan P IAS in charge of Domestic Flights, Dr Arundathi Chandrashekara IAS (NULP) in charge of Contact Tracing, Containment Zones and Quarantine Coordination, Meena Nagaraj IAS, in charge of Close contact tracing of international passengers, KD Dayananda IAS, in charge of rail passengers, and K S Ramesh IAS, in charge of High risk households and public spaces. Their work would constitute contact tracing efforts and coordination with various government bodies, being undertaken seriously by the government, in order to keep the number of infections in the state low.

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Intra-state train services resume in Karnataka after lockdown

Railways

The Bengaluru-Belagavi tri-weekly superfast special was the first train to operate in the state following the lockdown.

PTI

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Intra-state passenger train services resumed in the country on Friday, nearly two months after being suspended due to the COVID-19 lockdown, with the operation of three trains in Karnataka, the South Western Railway said. While the Bengaluru-Belagavi tri-weekly superfast special was the first and left Bengaluru at 8 am, a pair of daily special trains was operated between the city and Mysuru, the South Western Railway said. "First intra-state passenger train in India after March 22 started in South Western Railway. We are back to normal," it said in a statement. The train to Mysuru left at 9.20 am and reached the destination at 12.15 pm. In the return direction, the train from Mysuru left at 1.45 pm, it said. The passengers were allowed to board the trains with face masks while ensuring social distancing and other precautions, it said adding these trains will have stoppage at important stations. After Karnataka Chief Minister B S Yediyurappa recommended resumption of intra-state services in the state, the Railways approved running of four trains - two each from Bengaluru to Belagavi and Mysuru, the statement said. "We have opened reservation counters at major stations across Bengaluru. Ticket booking can be done from these booking offices now. All are advised to ensure physical distancing and wearing of mask," it said. Minister of State for Railways Suresh Angadi was instrumental in resumption of trains in a graded manner in Karnataka, the railway statement said. All passenger trains were suspended across the country under the national lockdown imposed to control the spread of coronavirus across the country since March 25. Recently, railways resumed passenger train operations with 15 pairs of special trains from New Delhi to different parts of the country while 100 pairs of specials are scheduled to begin operations from June 1. Intra-state bus services have also been allowed in Karnataka.

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Evacuation flights with stranded Indians from Maldives and Qatar land in Bengaluru

Coronavirus

Both the flights are first from their respective countries to Bengaluru, bringing in returnees as part of the second phase of the Vande Bharat mission.

IANS

PTI

Evacuation planes from Male in Maldives and Doha in Qatar landed in Bengaluru with returnees from Karnataka after they were stranded for two months due to suspension of international flights since March 23 and the extended lockdown, an official said on Friday. "An Air-India flight (#0266) with 152 passengers from Male and its subsidiary Express flight (IX-0822) with 177 returnees and 5 infants from Doha landed here safely at 6.50 pm. and 9.05 pm respectively," an airline official told IANS in Bengaluru. Both the flights are first from their respective countries to Bengaluru, bringing in returnees to the southern state in the second phase of the Vande Bharat mission, being carried out to evacuate Indians stranded the world over. "As per the standard operating procedure and guidelines of the state health department, all the passengers were screened with thermal device and tested to ensure they were asymptomatic before leaving the airport," a nodal officer said. The returnees were given a spare mask to wear all the time and a sanitiser to wash their hands. "The luggage of all passengers was screened and disinfected before handing over to them after they completed formalities such as filling the self-declaration form and downloading of the Quarantine App for contact tracing later,” said the official. The passengers were ferried from the airport in state-run buses in batches for 14-day institutional quarantine in hotels and resorts across the city. The flights were the 6th and 7th flights to Karnataka, of the national carrier and its Express arm, which are operating the service to repatriate thousands of Indians, including distressed workers, migrants, students, senior citizens and tourists, stranded overseas. Five flights have flown about 650 returnees till date from May 18-21 under the mission's second phase to Bengaluru and Mangaluru on the west coast. The passengers have been brought from Dubai in the UAE, Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia, Muscat in Oman, Dammam in Saudi Arabia and San Francisco in the US. The remaining flights to Karnataka will land in Bengaluru and Mangaluru over the next 12 days till June 3 from 9-10 more destinations the world over. In the first phase of the mission from May 7-17, the airline and its arm flew 6 flights to the state from May 11-15, bringing in 800 passengers, including 623 to Bengaluru and 177 to Mangaluru from London, Singapore, San Francisco and Dubai.

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Explained: Why Karnataka has not used plasma therapy on a second patient

Coronavirus

The first patient who had undergone plasma therapy to treat COVID-19 succumbed to his comorbidities on May 14.

Soumya Chatterjee

PTI

Doctors in Karnataka said that they have not tried the experimental convalescent plasma (CP) therapy for the second time in the state to treat COVID-19 simply due to lack of an eligible patient. Incidentally, the first patient who had undergone this treatment succumbed to his comorbidities on May 14. The state Health and Family Welfare Department had said that the 60-year-old man was suffering from multiple comorbidities and could not be revived after he suffered a cardiac arrest. It may be recalled that Karnataka was one of the first states in the country to get approval from the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) to use this form of treatment on April 22. The treatment involves injecting plasma of patients who have recovered from the disease to vulnerable patients. The Health Department had earlier said that only patients who are in critical support will be given this treatment— like patients in Intensive Care Units (ICUs) or on ventilator support. Speaking to TNM, Dr CR Jayanthi, Dean and Director of the Bangalore Medical College and Research Institute (BMCRI) dismissed that the death of the patient had any role to play in this. “So far, we have only tried to treat the (one) patient using plasma therapy and no one else. The inclusion and exclusion criteria for the patients is very clear as per the direction of the Directorate General of Healthcare Services. We cannot violate the criteria,” she told TNM. As reported earlier, Bengaluru-based HCG Cancer Hospital, which had got the regulatory approval, had partnered with BMRCI for the controlled study. Dr Gururaj, director of iCREST, the head researcher for this treatment at HCG Hospitals, said plasma therapy is targeted for patients who have already reached the midphase of infection but not with much acute respiratory symptoms and distress or pneumonia. He also said, “We have treated one patient but unfortunately the patient passed. We now are evaluating what happened with that particular patient and what were the scenarios at every stage of the treatment.” He said that this, however, did not mean that the experiment has failed. He explained, “The therapy has shown positive response across the globe, not only in combating COVID-19 but also other diseases as well. Unfortunately for us, the first plasma patient did not survive, even though he initially responded to the treatment. It is obviously a complex issue in the clinical scenario. I can always sit in the lab and tell you what exactly we should do but, when it comes to clinical practice, doctors are bombarded with a number of things depending on patient-to-patient. Especially in the pandemic situation, it is far more complex. We have continuous discussions with clinicians to get the right patient profile to use this treatment procedure.” Dr Gururaj explained that through this therapy, doctors are trying to mimic an efficient memory response like a vaccine would do. He said, “The plasma therapy works on the memory response. It will appear as if the patient’s immune system will remember that this is what the infection looks like and combat the infection as if he has been given a vaccine or already has recovered from the disease.”  

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Karnataka mandates seven-day institutional quarantine for flights from high-risk states

Coronavirus

The high-risk states include Gujarat, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh, as well as Delhi.

Theja Ram

PTI

All passengers travelling via domestic flights from Delhi, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh to Karnataka will have to undergo mandatory institutional quarantine for one week. The Karnataka government on Friday issued a fresh standard operating procedure for inter-state travellers, which mandates the same. “Returnees from high-prevalence states coming via road, rail or air should be kept in institutional quarantine for a period of 7 days. The swan samples of these persons will be taken from the fifth to seventh day,” the SOP states. If the test results come back negative, then these persons can return home and will have to be in home quarantine for the next seven days. These rules, however, do not apply to children below the age of 10 years, pregnant women, senior citizens who are aged 80 years and above and the terminally ill. One attendant, who is with any of these categories of persons mentioned above, will also be exempted from mandatory institutional quarantine. Health care professionals and those in the armed forces are also exempt from mandatory institutional quarantine. However, passengers returning from states other than the ones mentioned above will have to be in home quarantine for 14 days upon returning. Senior Health Department officials told TNM that the new SOP was issued to discourage travel from high-risk states unless absolutely necessary. “The number of COVID-19 cases are increasing in Karnataka because of people returning from states like Maharashtra and Gujarat. By imposing quarantine rules, people may be discouraged to travel,” the official said. On Friday, the state reported 138 new cases of COVID-19, and 111 of these cases were people who had returned from Maharashtra.

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Karnataka increases workday in factories from eight to 10 hours per day

Labour

The move comes in the wake of the state government pushing for diluting labour laws.

Theja Ram

The Karnataka government on Friday increased the working hours for employees deployed at factories to 10 hours per day. The Labour Department issued an order stating that all adult employees will have to work additional hours as opposed to the earlier cap of 8 hours per day.  “No adult worker shall be allowed or required to work in a factory for more than ten (10) hours in any day and sixty (60) hours in any week,” the order states.  The state government has powers to increase working hours of employees under the Factories Act of 1948. The state government has exempted factories from the provisions of section 51, which states that no adult worker can work for more than eight hours per day and section 54, which sets the maximum working hours at nine hours per day. However, the state government has not made any changes regarding over-time work performed by employees and the rules will continue to be the same in this regard.  The All India Central Council of Trade Unions (AICCTU) lashed out against the government, accusing it of driving workers to the path of bonded labour.  “10 hour work day. Post pandemic more will be squeezed out of workers bodies, already on the brink of starvation,” AICCTU said in a tweet.  10 hour work day. Post pandemic more will be squeezed out of workers bodies, already on the brink of starvation. (Super rich face no new taxes) Path to legalised bonded labour is truly being laid. We will fight this tooth and nail @BSYBJP The day of the workers will come.‌ pic.twitter.com/u9cW1xVT1d — AICCTU Karnataka (@aicctukar) May 22, 2020 Earlier this month, the Labour Department had come under fire after it proposed the idea of relaxing labour laws. The then-Labour Secretary Captain Manivannan had held a meeting with industrialists and businessmen earlier this month. During the meeting, businessmen pushed for reduction in minimum wages and benefits like insurance and provident fund.  Manivannan had also announced diluting the process of issuing notices to employers who have not paid their employees. He had said that action would be taken only if the employer is making profits and has not paid the salaries. However, employers, who are unable to pay, would not be forced to do so.  Manivannan had received flak for stating that “Karnataka can do better than Uttar Pradesh” while referring to labour reforms. UP diluted its labour laws earlier this year, which raised several concerns about rights of employees and humane working conditions.  On May 12, Captain Manivannan was transferred out of the Labour Department and the state government replaced him with Industries Secretary Maheshwar Rao, who was given the additional portfolio of Labour. The brazen move was criticised by many after which the government posted Dr Rajkumar Khatri as the Labour Secretary last week.

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Karnataka reports 138 cases of COVID-19 in a single day, 80% from Maharashtra

Coronavirus

Chikkaballapura reported 47 cases on Friday and all of them were returnees from Maharashtra.

TNM Staff

Representation photo

Karnataka reported 138 new cases of COVID-19 on Friday, marking the third day of 100-plus new cases being reported in the state. Among the 138 new cases, 111 (80%) are patients who had returned from Maharashtra. With this, the total number of cases in the state comes to 1743.  Chikkaballapura district has reported the highest number of new cases in the state with 47 cases, followed by Hassan (14) and Raichur, 10. All the patients who tested positive in Chikkaballapura on Friday are all returnees from Maharashtra. Among them, 597 have already recovered and another 1104 persons are being treated in hospitals across the state. 19 among the active cases are admitted in intensive care units, according to a bulleting released by the Karnataka Ministry of Health and Family Welfare. No new deaths were reported on Friday. A total of 41 patients have so far died due to COVID-19 comorbidities. In Bengaluru Urban, 5 new cases of coronavirus has been reported. Two persons were contacts of P706, while one case has been reported as influenza like illness (ILI). Two others in Bengaluru Urban are still being traced for contacts. Tumakuru similarly has a case whose contact is still under tracing. Bengaluru Rural has reported a new case of coronavirus and the patient had ILI. Two new containment zones have been declared in Vijayapura district, while one new containment zone has been declared in Haveri and Bengaluru Urban districts.  Read: BBMP seals off road in Bengaluru's JJR Nagar, 21st containment zone in city The Karnataka Minister for Education, S Suresh Kumar said in a press conference that the state was in favour of relaxing lockdown norms, except in places which have been declared as containment zones, as many people are in economic distress due to the lockdown. However, he emphasised that the state is taking every measure to contain the spread of the virus in the state.    

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