Bengaluru: Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai clarified that there is no proposal before the Karnataka Government to impose a lockdown now. He further clarified that authorities had been told to keep vigil over schools and colleges, but not to close them.
Speaking to mediapersons in Davangere on November 29, Bommai asked people not to panic over the new Covid variant ‘Omicron’ and duly follow all Covid-19 protocol. He said that the government would be maintaining a strict vigil over the people visiting India from countries where the new variant was found, and contact tracing is being carried out without fail.
“This apart, we are conducting tests at airport compulsorily. Only those with Covid -19-negative report are being allowed to enter Bengaluru. In addition, officials have been told to allow only those students from Kerala who have Covid-19-negative report, and they should be compulsorily tested again on the seventh day,” he said.
Bommai said that the State Government is in continuous touch with experts and the Union Government for updates on Covid and the latest precautionary measures. He said that as a person from South Africa had various symptoms, his swab sample had been sent for genome sequencing to ICMR.
Earlier, the SDM college in Dharwad has become a Covid cluster as 281 people have tested positive so far. “All social and cultural events, conferences, seminars, academic events, etc. in educational institutions may be postponed for 2 months”, the Karnataka government said in an advisory. The development also comes in the wake of the emergence of Omicron, a new variant of Covid, which has created havoc across the world.
In the light of recent clusters of Covid-19 being detected at educational institutions at Mysuru, Dharwad, and Bengaluru districts, the following advisory is being issued: All the students in medical, paramedical, and other such educational institutions should be screened daily for symptoms of Covid-19. And symptomatic should be tested and treated as per the guidelines already issued.
Earlier, Karnataka Health Minister Dr K Sudhakar had urged the citizens to take the second dose of vaccine. “I request the people who’ve not taken second dose to get it on priority. We came out with 6 genomic labs in the last 6 months and are in a situation where we can sequence, send samples, and understand the progression of the mutation”, a portal quoted him as saying.
On November 17, several students had attended a freshers’ party which was organized at SDM college in Dharwad. Of the total attended, 281 people, all fully vaccinated tested positive for the virus. As a preventive measure, a holiday was declared in educational institutions in a radius of 500 meters near Dharwad’s SDM College of Medical Sciences.
